U.S. on pace to pass 100,000 Covid-19 deaths by June 1, CDC director says

The United States is heading toward more than 100,000 coronavirus deaths by June 1, with leading mortality forecasts still trending upward, CDC Director Robert Redfield tweeted on Friday.

His assessment cited 12 different models tracked by his agency and marked the first time Redfield has explicitly addressed the grim milestone of 100,000 deaths, even as the Trump administration turns its strategy toward reopening the economy. The CDC director has been mostly sidelined in the government’s public-facing response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Redfield shared weekly forecast data the agency culls from models run by 12 top institutions including Columbia University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. They show the cumulative reported coronavirus deaths since February and made projections for the next four weeks in the United States.

“As of May 11, all [12 models] forecast an increase in deaths in the coming weeks and a cumulative total exceeding 100,000 by June 1,” he tweeted.

The CDC notes that the models are based on varying assumptions about how Americans are following social distancing guidelines and other measures aimed at curbing the spread of the virus.

The coronavirus has already infected more than 1.4 million Americans, and killed more than 84,700, according to tracking by Johns Hopkins University.

President Donald Trump in late March shared White House projections that the death toll could hit between 100,000 and 240,000 Americans, although he spun the forecast as a success, in contrast to an earlier model that predicted more than 2 million deaths if no effort was made to contain the disease.