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US Surpasses 150,000 Coronavirus Deaths, Far Eclipsing Earlier Projections
Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=55426"><span class="small">Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs, The New York Times</span></a>   
Thursday, 30 July 2020 08:29

Bogel-Burroughs writes: "The United States' leading authority on infectious disease expressed hope in April that no more than 60,000 people in the country would die from the coronavirus."

Surges in coronavirus deaths across the country have sometimes strained the capacity of morgues and funeral homes. A worker prepared a casket in Brownsville, Texas. (photo: Tamir Kalifa/The New York Times)
Surges in coronavirus deaths across the country have sometimes strained the capacity of morgues and funeral homes. A worker prepared a casket in Brownsville, Texas. (photo: Tamir Kalifa/The New York Times)

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US Surpasses 150,000 Coronavirus Deaths, Far Eclipsing Earlier Projections

By Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs, The New York Times

30 July 20


The national toll shows how difficult predicting the virus — or human behavior — can be. President Trump and leading experts have at times said that deaths would be much lower.

he United States’ leading authority on infectious disease expressed hope in April that no more than 60,000 people in the country would die from the coronavirus. A revered research center predicted a few weeks later that the figure would be just over 70,000 people by early August. When the number of deaths shot up in May, President Trump said that anywhere between 75,000 and 100,000 people could die.

On Wednesday, the nation’s death toll surpassed 150,000.

That the figure, based on a New York Times database, has soared so soon and so far beyond those estimates illustrates how difficult it can be to accurately forecast the spread of the virus, or the way citizens and politicians will respond to it.

“The aspect which is really impossible to predict is human behavior,” said Virginia Pitzer, a professor of epidemiology at Yale. “To what extent are people going to socially distance themselves? To what extent are politics going to influence whether you wear a mask? All of these factors are impossible to factor in.”

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