The coronavirus death toll in the US has doubled in a little over a week to more than 45,000 as the latest models increase the estimated number of fatalities expected by August to 66,000.
Deaths rose by a near-record amount in a single day on Tuesday with just over 2,400 fatalities recorded, bringing the total toll to 45,435.
That daily death toll was just shy of a peak of 2,524 deaths in a single day on April 15.
Ten days ago, on April 12, the U.S. death toll stood at 22,129.
Confirmed COVID-19 cases also surged by 26,558, bringing total infections up to 827,093.
It comes as a predictive model relied on by the White House increased its projection of expected deaths by 10 percent.
The University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation now expects the national death toll to hit 65,976 by August – 5,561 more than previously forecast.
IHME’s model is constantly being fed new data and changes its forecast accordingly.
It is the model which is used by the White House for forward planning.
The model had last month predicted there would be more than 90,000 deaths by August, but that number dropped to 82,000 on April 7, before decreasing by another 20,000 days later.
The drastic reduction signaled to experts at IHME that social distancing measures were working in the fightback against COVID-19.
But the model assumes that all states are implementing ‘broad, aggressive social distancing policies’, and may not have factored in any plans from states, such a Georgia and South Carolina, to ease social distancing measures early.
New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Michigan each reported their highest single-day coronavirus-related death tolls on Tuesday – over 800 between the three states.
New York state, the epicenter of the US outbreak, reported 481 new deaths.
Health officials have noted that deaths are a lagging indicator of the outbreak, coming weeks after patients fall sick, and do not mean stay-at-home restrictions are failing to slow the spread of the virus.
New reported US cases appear to be slowing this week, rising by less than 30,000 a day for the past four days through Tuesday. The United States had a record 35,397 new cases on April 10.
It comes as Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp announced Monday that bowling alleys, salons, barbershops and a number of other indoor facilities that have been closed across Georgia since April 2 will be permitted to reopen this Friday – despite deaths and infections spiking in the state on Tuesday.
The death toll in the state has increased by 131 in 24 hours, bringing the total number of fatalities to 818. Infections also surged by more than 1,000, bringing the number of cases in the state up to 20,166.
President Trump said today that he disagrees “strongly” with Kemp’s decision to allow businesses to reopen on Friday.
“I want him to do what he thinks is right, but I disagree with him on what he’s doing,” Trump said at a White House press briefing Wednesday.
Trump said Kemp’s decision violates guidelines the administration issued last week for states to follow before reopening parts of their economies.
Such a swift reopening runs counter to the advice of many experts, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top authority on infectious diseases, who warned again Monday that resuming business too soon risked a fresh spike in infections.