One-hundred thousand more Americans could lose their lives to COVID by December unless more is done to reduce the spread of the virus.
A key model from the University of Washington predicts that 738,700 Americans could die from COVID by December 1. So far, more than 634,000 Americans have died from the virus.
The nation’s top infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci said the potential outcome is “predictable but entirely preventable.”
“We know we have the wherewithal with vaccines to turn this around, and the reason the numbers are so alarming is that we have about 80 million people in this country who are eligible to be vaccinated who are not yet vaccinated,” Fauci said.
“We could turn this thing around and we can do it efficiently and quickly if we could just get those people vaccinated,” he continued. “It’s so important that people in this crisis put aside any ideological and political differences and just get vaccinated.”
The prediction can change based on how people are behaving. Experts say projected deaths can be cut in half if people simply wear a mask.
“Behavior is really going to determine if, when, and how sustainably the current wave subsides,” Lauren Ancel Meyers, director of the University of Texas COVID-19 Modeling Consortium, told the Associated Press. “We cannot stop Delta in its tracks, but we can change our behavior overnight.”
“We can save 50,000 lives simply by wearing masks. That’s how important behaviors are,” Ali Mokdad, a professor of health metrics sciences at the University of Washington in Seattle, involved in the making of the projections, told the AP.
According to the New York Times, COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths have both increasing across the country in the past two weeks. Hospitalizations rose by 24 percent while deaths climbed by 96 percent.
Currently ,52 percent of the population is fully vaccinated while more than 61 percent have received at least one dose.
