New York: America is on track to lose 180,000 lives to
coronavirus by the start of October, according to new data from experts modeling the
pandemic at the
University of Washington in Seattle, though an embrace of masks could decrease the damage.
The forecast from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation is a reduction from a projection of 201,129 deaths from the middle of June, and is predicated on the expectation that the outbreak will start to pick up in late August and intensify further in September, with 179,106 deaths by Oct. 1.
US deaths from coronavirus reached 121,662 on Wednesday, according to data collected by
Johns Hopkins University and Bloomberg News. The drop in projected deaths is tied in part to the fact that more younger patients are being diagnosed with coronavirus infections, and they are more likely to recover from them, said IHME Director
Christopher Murray.