(Asurobson/Getty Images)

HEALTH

US Could Have 1 Million Daily Virus Cases by The End of

The Year, Report Finds
ARIA BENDIX, BUSINESS INSIDER
12 NOVEMBER 2020

In March, when New York City hospitals were reeling from an overwhelming surge of
coronavirus cases, the US was only catching a glimpse of the bigger crisis to come.

The highest number of cases ever recorded in one day this spring was around 35,000,
though many went uncounted. Now, the US has recorded an average of more than 112,000
daily cases over the last seven days. Cases reached an all-time peak of more than 132,000
on Friday.
On Monday, the US surpassed 10 million total cases - just 10 days after cases topped 9
million. Before that, it took two weeks for cases to rise from 8 million to 9 million, and
three weeks for cases to jump from 7 million to 8 million.

The nation's weekly per cent positivity rate - the share of coronavirus tests that come back
positive - has reached 9 percent. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy
and Infectious Diseases, has said the rate should ideally sit below 3 percent. Only six
states and Washington, DC, currently meet that threshold. Half of states have test-positivity
rates in the double digits. South Dakota's rate is highest, at around 54 percent.

Experts predict this fall-winter surge will be the largest, and perhaps deadliest, yet. Indeed,
the second surge the country experienced over the summer, from June through August,
resulted in nearly 4.2 million cases. Since September, the US has already recorded about 4
million more.

According to a recent prediction from Pantheon Macroeconomics, the US could be on track

to record 1 million daily coronavirus cases by the end of 2020 if average cases continue to
grow 34 percent from week to week, as they are currently.

The US is 'about to enter COVID hell'

Other models offer more conservative, albeit still troubling, estimates.

The University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, for instance,
predicts that daily cases could peak at nearly 306,000 on December 31. (The institute
defines daily cases as all infections on a given day, not just new cases identified through
testing.)

If states continue to relax restrictions, the model suggests the fall-winter surge could be
even worse, reaching a peak of nearly 793,000 daily cases on January 23. The institute's
model predicts that 160,000 more people in the US could die of the coronavirus from now
through February 1.

"I am tremendously concerned," Megan Ranney, an emergency-medicine physician at

Brown University, told Business Insider.

"The other surges were very localised," she added. "This is different because it is truly
nationwide."

Weekly hospitalizations have also risen about 18 percent from week to week. If that trend
continues, daily hospitalizations could triple to 180,000 by the end of the year.

On Monday, Dr. Michael Osterholm, a recent appointee to President-elect Joe Biden's

coronavirus advisory board, told CNBC that the US was "about to enter COVID hell."

But public-experts say the US can lower daily cases - and consequently, deaths - this
winter, before a vaccine hits the market. The solution would involve more lockdown
restrictions.

Lockdown measures could prevent a worst-case scenario

In a Monday report, Pantheon Macroeconomics' chief economist, Ian Sherpherdson,

warned that the US should brace for the worst-case scenario of 1 million daily cases this
winter. The longer states and cities wait to impose lockdown restrictions, he added, the
more likely that scenario becomes.
"When it gets as bad as it appears to be in some parts of the country, and potentially
others in the weeks to come, you really have little choice left than to do a short-term
lockdown, trying to get the numbers down to a point where testing and contact tracing can
actually have an impact," Marissa Levine, a public-health professor at the University of
South Florida, told Business Insider. "I hate to say that because we didn't necessarily have
to be in this position."

Many states are taking the opposite approach, however.

In October, Texas began allowing counties with relatively few coronavirus hospitalizations
to reopen bars and other businesses at limited capacity. Pennsylvania, too, started
permitting venues like concerts and stadiums to operate at 10 percent to 25 percent
occupancy. Restaurants in South Carolina have been able to operate at full capacity since
October 2.

Other states have reinstated some restrictions, but not nearly to the extent that they did in
the spring.

Illinois, Massachussetts, and New Mexico recently imposed curfews that limit how late
certain businesses can remain open. Illinois began prohibiting indoor dining in bars and
restaurants earlier this month. And at the end of October, Michigan reduced the maximum
capacity at indoor venues from 500 people to 50.

Some other states - including Delaware, Louisiana, Maine, and North Carolina - have
simply put their reopening plans on pause.

Public-health experts say it's likely that under a Biden administration, states may get more
concrete guidelines as to when they can safely reopen or should enact new restrictions.
Biden's campaign website at one time stated that if elected, he would tailor reopening
guidelines to individual communities based on their levels of transmission.
But any lockdown is likely to be met with some opposition, due to a combination of
pandemic fatigue and politics.

"Even if we make it completely clear: 'This is the line, if you cross this line, you should shut
down,' it's still ultimately a political decision," Ingrid Katz, an assistant professor at Harvard
Medical School, told Business Insider. "If decisions are being driven by forces other than
science, then they are not always going to be decisions that are in people's best interests."

This article was originally published by Business Insider.

More from Business Insider:

Upset and not accepting of the election results, Trump appears to have forgotten he still has to
govern

'We need more help': El Paso's Republican mayor says the city needs a second stimulus to protect
public health

Biden projected to win Arizona and its 11 electoral votes

LIVE RESULTS: President-elect Biden wins Arizona, growing his Electoral College victory to 290
votes

Former Trump official was 'duped' into thanking a war criminal on Veterans Day