he novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has run rampant in the United States claiming lives of over 68,326 people so far, according to Johns Hopkins University’s tally.
It noted that the highly contagious virus has also infected at least 1,172,670 people across the US.
Johns Hopkins has counted over 13,000 new cases and at least 640 reported deaths on Monday. The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington (IHME) has revised higher their projection of the US coronavirus deaths to at least 134,000 by August 4.
Speaking to reporters on Monday, IHME Director Dr. Christopher Murray said they have reached this result after a major revision in their modeling strategy.
He clarified that a team is now using a hybrid approach, and is gathering “mobility data as it gets reported through four different cell phone providers” and using data to reflect the effect of premature relaxation of social distance, which has a substantial effect.
“The effect of this shift in modeling framework is that the number of deaths that we forecast out to August 4, now increases to 134,000 deaths,” Murray said.
Murray said there is a “longer tail of deaths,” meaning it will be a slower decline in some states. On Sunday, US President Donald Trump stated “we’re going to lose anywhere from 75, 80 to 100 thousand people. That’s a horrible thing.”
