Over 630,000 COVID-19 deaths predicted in US by June 1

An influential coronavirus model has predicted there the US will register more than 631,000 deaths due to the novel coronavirus by June 1. Issued on Friday, the latest forecast from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington said that the result depends on the vaccine rollout and the spread of variants, reports Xinhua news agency. A worst-case scenario could see the death toll go as high as 703,000.

Increasing the wearing of masks from the current level of 77 per cent to 95 per cent can save some 44,000 lives by June 1, according to the model.

The IHME estimated that 17 per cent of people in the US have been infected as of February 1.

The daily death rate is greater than 4 per million in 41 states.

“Daily deaths have peaked and are declining. By June 1, 2021, we project that 123,600 lives will be saved by the projected vaccine rollout,” the IHME said in the forecast.

The best strategies to manage this period of the pandemic are rapid scale-up of vaccination, continued and expanded mask-wearing, and concerted efforts to avoid rebound mobility in the vaccinated, according to the institute.

Some states are lifting mandates rapidly, which poses a real risk of increased transmission as new variants spread and vaccination rates remain comparatively low, the IHME warned.

In its latest update on Saturday morning, the Johns Hopkins University revealed that the country’s overall caseload and death toll stood at 26,804,927 and 459,278, respectively.

January 2021 was by far the deadliest month of the pandemic in the country, with over 95,000 Covid-19 deaths, surpassing December 2020’s total of over 77,000 deaths.

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