Trumps we are turning a corner vaccine won't be this big miracle oh and there's a thing in there about masks
The fast-tracked coronavirus vaccines will come too late to spare the United States an unprecedented surge in deaths this winter, with covid-19-related deaths likely to reach 539,000 by April, according to a new estimate Friday by the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation model.
Despite efforts to scale up vaccine production and distribution, probably only 9,000 lives will be spared by immunizations, according to IHME.
“The vaccine has not come in time to do much about the winter wave,” institute Director Christopher Murray told
The Post.
As the daily death toll is expected to peak at nearly 3,000 in mid- to late January, the model forecasts that more lives would probably be saved with universal masking or states’ governors ramping up other mandates — suggestions that are not new to the public health realm.
For instance, the simulation suggests that if mask use increased to 95 percent nationally, 66,000 lives would be saved by April. Even though the estimate accounts for 43 states reimposing mandates before April, if state leaders decide to take the opposite approach and ease restrictions, the projection assumes deaths would rise to 770,000 by April.
A quicker rollout of an effective vaccine could still save lives, but it wouldn’t put as much of a dent in the nation’s death toll: 11,000 lives will be spared by a rapid release of the vaccine, or 14,000 if the launch targeted high-risk individuals