COVID Deaths to Potentially Increase Up to 710K by Early October: CDC
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Wednesday said that COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. are likely to increase over the next four weeks to reach between 683,000 and 710,000 by October 2.
According to the national ensemble forecast reported by the agency, 6,900 to 18,000 COVID deaths are likely to be reported during the week ending October 2.
The CDC also said new daily COVID-19 hospitalizations are expected to remain stable or have an uncertain trend over the upcoming four weeks with 6,400 to 19,500 newly confirmed hospitalizations likely to be reported on October 4.
The total number of COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. is at 653,332 as of September 9, with 33,996 deaths over a 28-day period, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
The U.S. health system, including hospital staff and other healthcare workers nationwide, is witnessing an increased burden as cases surge amid the highly transmissible Delta variant.
In Iowa, a doctor this week urged people to get their COVID vaccines as he referred to an increased number of deaths from the virus and added that he has never dealt with "this many sick people" before.
"We are drowning in people who are dying with this illness, and I have yet to admit a single person because of a vaccine-related incident," Lance VanGundy, the emergency medical director at UnityPoint Health in Marshalltown said in a video posted on his Facebook page.
"I don't want to be political, I just want everybody to really know, in over 20 years of doing this, I've never been this busy," he added.
VanGundy said that his emergency room held on to patients who had had a stroke, a heart attack, and a blood clot in the lung, who all should have been treated in intensive care units. However, all ICUs in Iowa were at full capacity.
President Joe Biden is expected to provide new guidance on how to curb the spread of COVID-19 in the country.
In his public address that is scheduled on Thursday at 5 p.m. ET, Biden is expected to announce six steps that should minimize COVID risks, including increased vaccination measures and guidance to schools reopening.
The president consulted with top COVID advisers at the White House on Wednesday in preparation for his COVID-related public address.
"We want to be specific about what we're trying to accomplish in this moment and what these six steps will do," White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Wednesday in a brief preview of Biden's remarks. "We know that increasing vaccinations will stop the spread of the pandemic [and] we'll get the pandemic under control, we'll return people to normal life. That's what our objective is."
