The United States reported the lowest single-day total of coronavirus deaths since April on Sunday.
The U.S. recorded 1,153 new deaths on Sunday, according to Worldometer, which tracks worldwide coronavirus cases and deaths. A total of 69,921 people had died in America due to the virus as of Tuesday morning. Monday also showed a lower number of deaths compared with other months’ data, with 1,324, while April 26 showed the last record-low day with 1,156 deaths.
Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show U.S. deaths from the virus spiking in mid-April and steadily declining since the beginning of May.
Current data from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation project more than 134,000 people will die from the virus in America by early August. Critics have pointed out how the IHME has been off in the past.
[Click here for complete coronavirus coverage]
Robert Redfield, the CDC’s director, last month cast doubt on coronavirus death projections and cautioned people against putting too much stock in statistical prognostications during a global pandemic.
“If we just social distance, we will see this virus and this outbreak basically decline, decline, decline. And I think that’s what you’re seeing,” said Redfield, according to CBS News. “I think you’re going to see the numbers are, in fact, going to be much less than what would have been predicted by the models.”
President Trump said Sunday the U.S. could see as many as 100,000 people die from the virus, a deviation from a rosier outlook the White House gave earlier during the outbreak.
Multiple media outlets reported Monday of a draft from a government document regarding the virus that projected deaths in the U.S. will rise to more than 3,000 a day by June 1, and new cases could increase by as much as 200,000 a day by that time.
The White House, however, pushed back on the model.
“This is not a White House document, nor has it been presented to the Coronavirus Task Force or gone through interagency vetting,” said White House deputy press secretary Judd Deere. “This data is not reflective of any of the modeling done by the task force or data that the task force has analyzed.”
