The Trump administration projects about 3,000 daily deaths by early June.
As President Trump presses for states to reopen their economies, his administration is privately projecting a steady rise in the number of cases and deaths from the coronavirus over the next several weeks, reaching about 3,000 daily deaths on June 1, according to an internal document obtained by The New York Times, nearly double from the current level of about 1,750.
The projections, based on government modeling pulled together in chart form by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, forecast about 200,000 new cases each day by the end of the month, up from about 25,000 cases now.
200,000 new cases a day and 3,000 new deaths a day. #MAGA?
Trumpâs strategy is clear: declare a victory and move on to getting the economy going. Additional deaths are mere collateral damage. Disband the task force. Talk only about reopening and getting people back to work. The virus is old news and will go away like peopleâs memories of the adminâs failures. Re-election is the key to economic recovery.
Well the the folks at the University of Washing who produce the IHME model revised their assumptions this week - eliminating the assumption that everyone was going to respect stay-at-home and social distancing orders (du-uh) - and that near-doubled their projection of COVID deaths by the beginning of August from 75,000 to 134,000. The CDC promptly removed this model from its previously prominent position on their website and Iâm sure we will hear no mention of it again from the administration.
But look at this chart of the actual and projected daily death toll under the revised model:
It assumes that, any day now, itâs just going to reverse direction and trend steadily downwards. This is still fantasy thinking, yet still to real for the Trump administration.
Meanwhile, the IHME model has retained its other assumptions unmodified, which include consistent and widespread testing and tracing - which still isnât happening. Maybe thatâs something to do with the fact that Trump is now disbanding Jaredâs COVID task force. Shocking, I know, considering that it was run by an idiot and staffed by people with no crisis management, medical, procurement or supply chain experience. They did manage to commandeer about 30% of available testing supplies for a nationwide drive-up testing program that didnât happen. Lord knows what now happens to that stash or whether these dipshits even know where it is.
Lastly, current rates of new daily infections and deaths is running consistently at around 25,000 and 1,500 respectively. In a leaked CDC presentation, they are projecting - by August - that the US will have numbers more like 200,000 and 3,000. Daily.
This is exactly his strategy. If youâre still alive, itâs entirely because of his swift, decisive leadership, based on cool logic, his savant-like understanding of medicine and epidemiology, and an unprecedented courage in the face of an overwhelming challenge that would make most cower (think the painting of Washington crossing the Delaware). If you vote for anyone else, youâre probably going to die. And people will eat it up.
Hereâs the thing: where the virus is hitting hardest now is Trump country. Rural, small town America. I know that there is a huge swath of Trump supporters who are ride and/or die, but this has to be a reality that will override his ability to gaslight his base. Further, his base isnât going to be enough to elect him this time around; he wonât have the anti-Hillary bump and he wonât have the advantage of being the new kid at a time when things were actually pretty decent for Americans (remember that?).
Yeah, last time around things were pretty good, it was billed as a makes-no-difference choice between âtwo evilsâ, so many plumped for the new guy. Still, Trump needed those voters, plus the anti-Hillary vote, plus the Bernie Bros non-vote, plus a scandal for his opponent on the eve of the election ginned up by the FBI, plus illegal interference from Russia (and maybe Israel), plus Wikileaks strategically dumping embarrassing internal DNC documents, plus his fixer covering up a tryst with a porn star and his buddy at the National Enquirer doing likewise with another affair with a nude model - both of which were stories due to break in October. And with all of that, it came down to him eking out wins in 3 pivotal states by an aggregate margin of 77,000 votes.
This time, he will be running with a likely still raging pandemic (that will be largely now only ongoing in the US), crushing unemployment, a housing market in the toilet and skyrocketing deficits, plus his incompetence and unfitness laid bare by this crisis (for those willing to see it). His polling in those 3 pivotal states has him underwater to Biden already, plus his also behind in places like Florida and Ohio, and is even behind (but within the margin of error) in Texas.
And those 77,000 voters in PA, MI and WI may be dead.
It is his strategy, but the gaping hole in it is that the public makes these choices, not him or his rabid followers. They choose whether they want to hang out at the bar and restaurants, travel, buy that car, etcâŚ
Christie, in cheerleading for the adminâs strategy responded to a question about whether the public will accept reopening when they donât feel safe. His response was âtheyâll have to.â Sure Chris, in your warped world. They might have to accept the âofficialâ reopenings, but they donât have to participate in a meaningful way.
This whole strategy is the worst possible one: increased deaths and a shitty economy where people are rightly afraid to participate. A complete half-measure clusterfuck operation.
I doubt Trump and many at-risk Republicans survive this.
The Senate is now projected to have a Democratic majority. McConnell is polling within the margin of error against his Democratic opponent, and is deep underwater in State favorability polls.
I think more testing is good and if they are finding more infected people in that testing then its better than not knowing they are there. I think posting those charts of new cases without that context is not a good thing.
Agree. More confirmed cases, when testing goes way up, is obviously going to be the case.
Tracking total confirmed infected isnt the best indicator. Tracking deaths, and those hospitalized, and % of those tested who test positive are better indicators.
I was just going through some recent Senate race polls and was surprised at the number of Republican incumbents that are in serious trouble: McSally (AZ), Gardner (CO), Tillis (NC), and Collins (ME) are all underwater by anywhere from 4-17 points, plus McConnell (KY) and Ernst (IA) cling to razor-thin leads. The election is still a long time from now, though.
Understood. I have been showing infection charts because one leads to the other. Death tolls are terrible, but they typically lag behind the infection rates and you see a correlation between the curves just with this time offset.
For example, hereâs Kentuckyâs daily new cases and new deaths:
You can clearly see the same pattern in both charts, with the qualifier that the sharp uptick at the end of the new cases chart has yet to manifest itself in new deaths, but it will.
We are still not anywhere close to widespread pro-active testing - itâs still very hard / impossible to get tested unless youâre symptomatic. So I think cases is a better measure; if they are going up, deaths are going to follow.
According to this Rice study, only 1 out of 10 symptomatic Houstonians are getting tested. The majority of respondents with symptoms didnât bother trying to get a test, but more people tried to get tested and where unable to than those who were tested.
More than one in four respondents reported possible COVID-19 symptoms and only a small percentage pursued testing. As of Monday, of the 1,095 respondents reporting a high temperature or feverish feeling, 115 got tested, 127 tried but could not get tested and and 853 did not seek testing.
Iâm not surprised that people arenât bothering to seek tests given the predominant story from health responders that there arenât enough tests (even the US Senate canât get adequate tests). Who would want to feel like shit, then get out of bed and go hang out with a bunch of other sick people when you probably wonât be able to get a test anyway?
But the actual availability of testing is pretty opaque to me. The last number I recall seeing was that Harris County could process 1,000 test a day, but that was a few weeks ago and I think that doesnât include private testing.
Until 2%, or about 7 million Americans are dead. The lack of a national plan coordinated internationally will mean wave after wave until almost everybody eventually gets it. A nightmare that doesnât need to happen, but will as long as Trump is president. A new team of competent professionals could take over in January, but there will be over 500,000 dead by then and the virus conflagration and the international isolation of the U.S. by then will be a titanic task to turn around.
Also, the Trump administration is refusing to coordinate a potential transition to a Biden administration - something that every President before him yada yada yada.
If he loses, heâs going to tear the country apart trying to say he didnât, and then leave the incoming administration a complete disaster.
