Coronavirus Update: US Death Toll May Be Lower Than Predicted With Social Distancing

Health officials in the United States said that deaths due to coronavirus could be lower than the original projections if the public practiced social distancing.

Various health researchers have been creating new forecast models of the outbreak with social distancing factored into the equation.

These experts said that the U.S. death toll might be under the 100,000-to-240,000 figure, which was released by the White House Coronavirus Task Force last week under Dr. Deborah Birx. She said that the projections were made from a "combination of models."

However, 90 percent of Americans have reportedly been observing the physical distancing guidelines from the government. The task force previously projected that only 50 percent of Americans would follow social distancing.

"Those models that were done, they assumed that only about 50% of the American public would pay attention to the recommendations," Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) director Dr. Robert Redfield said. "In fact, it would seem, a large majority of the American public are taking the social distancing recommendations to heart."

On Monday, an adjusted model of the U.S. death toll projections from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), which is often cited by Birx, showed that 81,766 individuals could die from coronavirus in the next four months. The numbers are at least 12,000 lower than the original death toll projection.

Dr. Christopher Murray, the director of the IHME, stressed the importance of social distancing, including school and non-essential business closures, in the newest version of their model. The expert said that the consequences would be greater if social distancing measures are eased off.

"The US will see greater death tolls, the death peak will be later, the burden on hospitals will be much greater and the economic costs will continue to grow," Murray said.

Experts from Harvard also said that their pandemic model projected numbers close to the IHME model that Birx often cites. White House advisor Alessandro Vespignani said that their estimates at Northeastern University are "in the ballpark" of the figures that Birx mentions in the press briefings.

"The model is only as good and as accurate as your assumptions," task force expert Dr. Anthony Fauci said. "And whenever the modelers come in, they give a worst-case scenario and a best-case scenario."