A leaked report from the CDC suggested that, rather than moving in the right direction, the death totals were likely to get considerably worse very fast — with an average of about 3,000 deaths (and 200,000 new cases) a day as soon as June 1.
The median projection — 3,000 deaths a day, as soon as the end of this month — is quite horrific, a 50 percent increase above our current peak. But for the lifetime of the model’s projections, no single day of data came anywhere close to as low as the median prediction. For the last two weeks, with the country’s infection and death rates shaped profoundly by social distancing and shelter-at-home orders, the results have fallen at or above the model’s 75th-percentile projection. That percentile, on June 1, yields a projection of more than 7,500 deaths every day.
For most of the lifetime of the model, when the data reflected fewer lockdowns and less social distancing — that is, when it reflected conditions more like the ones we are going to see more of going forward — daily deaths fell at or above the 97th-percentile projection. For June 1, that projection is for 15,000 deaths every day. If that rate held for a month, it would produce 750,000 deaths just in June.
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