Coronavirus US News: States Reopening Too Early May Have 'Exceedingly Deadly' Outcomes, Say Projections

New projections indicate states that practice less "contact reduction" will end up with a higher death toll.

KEY POINTS

New models project that US deaths from coronavirus will continues to rise for states opening up too early
How quickly the death toll will rise depends on how much "contact reduction" occurs
Cases in states that practice "contact reduction" will slow substantially, according to the CDC

Though some states may have made the decision to open up again ahead of a marked slowing of the coronavirus's spread across the United States, this arrangement might not be the best one for the citizens.

Seven new coronavirus models demonstrate that U.S. deaths from the illness will continue to rise in the next few weeks. However, how sharply the death toll rises will depend solely on how much "contact reduction" Americans end up practicing, according to guidelines set by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

"State-level forecasts vary widely, reflecting differences in early epidemic phases, timing of interventions, and model-specific assumptions," the CDC reported.

The models put forth by the CDC where states practice contact reduction do show that deaths will continue to occur, but will end up slowing "substantially" over the next four weeks, meaning a marked decline in the deaths related to coronavirus and COVID-19.

"Conversely, models that do not incorporate as strong contact reductions ... suggest that total deaths may continue to rise quickly," the CDC concluded.

As of Tuesday morning, nearly 1 millions people had been infected in the U.S. alone, and over 56,000 people had died. Several states have already begun reopening small business despite these harrowing numbers, such as Georgia, according to President Donald Trump's "Opening Up America Again" plan.

The guidelines assert that states should not begin to reopen until they have a downward trajectory of documented cases in a 14-day period or downward trajectory of positive tests as a percent of total tests in 14 days.

"We didn't meet the full gating criteria, but we met several of them and we were approaching a plateauing, which made us feel that it would be safe to move forward because we had three things in place," said Dr. Kathleen Toomey, commissioner of the Georgia Department of Public Health. She added that the criteria involved were contact tracing and testing capacity as well as hospitalization.