CDC Predicts COVID 3-Week Rampage Will Claim This Many Lives

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has a dire warning about what is to come for the COVID-19 pandemic, according to its latest ensemble projections.

The agency believes that as many as 92,000 Americans will die from COVID-19 in the next three weeks despite the rollout of the vaccine. This represents a 25% increase in total COVID-related deaths, which have now topped over 384,000, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

The CDC’s forecast also suggests that total COVID deaths will reach up to 477,000 by Feb. 6.

The agency has begun inoculations of both the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines to frontline workers and residents of long-term care workers, then phasing to those 65 and older. However, doses of the drug have only reached 10.2 million doses to date.

The phased-in approach of the vaccine is rolling out slower than anticipated, missing the targets previously outlined under Operation Warp Speed of 20 million shots by the end of December, The New York Times reported.

Compounding the issue is the new strains of the virus that have cropped up across the U.S., causing concern, whether the vaccine will be effective against these variants. Experts have said they believe the COVID vaccine has efficacy against mutations of the virus, which has shown evidence of being more infectious.

But as the general public still waits for inoculations, experts warn that things will likely get worse before they start to get better in 2021, The New York Times reported.

Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, said in an interview with NPR on Jan. 7, “We believe things will get worse as we get into January.”

Fauci attributed the rise in COVID cases to gatherings and travel during the holiday season.

Within the first weeks of January, the U.S. also saw the deadliest days of the pandemic. There were a record number of COVID deaths and positive cases of the virus. COVID-related hospitalizations were also up as more than 130,000 Americans are being treated for the virus, according to COVID Tracking Project.

In the first week of January alone, two people died every minute, Forbes said. To date, there have been over 23 million positive cases of the coronavirus in the U.S. and over 92 million worldwide, Johns Hopkins University reported.