A Harvard health expert predicts an additional 100,000 US coronavirus deaths by September

Medical staff carry a box as they walk at the Jinyintan hospital, where coronavirus patients are being treated, in Wuhan, Hubei province, China January 10, 2020.

Darley Shen/Reuters

• A Harvard health expert said he expects the US to surpass 200,000 deaths sometime in September. 

  

• Close to 113,000 people have already died from the coronavirus in the US. 

• The main model being used by officials to estimate the impact of the coronavirus outbreak in the United States also revised its death toll this week to 193,347 COVID-19 deaths by October 1. 

• Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.

A Harvard health expert said he expects an additional 100,000 deaths in the US by September. 

Dr. Ashish Jha, the director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that the current data shows that somewhere between 800 to 1,000 Americans are dying from the virus daily, and even if that does not increase, the US is poised to cross 200,000 deaths sometime in September.

“I think that is catastrophic. I think that is not something we have to be fated to live with,” Jha told CNN. “We can change the course. We can change course today.”

So far close to 113,000 people have died from the coronavirus in the US.

Jha stressed that the numbers he’s predicted are only for the next several months. 

“The pandemic won’t be over in September,” Jha said. “So, I’m really worried about where we’re going to be in the weeks and months ahead.”

The main model used by officials to estimate the impact of the coronavirus outbreak in the United States revised its death toll this week to 193,347 COVID-19 deaths by October 1. 

As of June 10, the number of US coronavirus infections was just shy of 2 million. More than 20 states have reported an increase in infections since lockdowns began to be lifted, and nine have seen their hospitalizations climb since Memorial Day, Business Insider previously reported. 

“We’re really the only major country in the world that opened back up without really getting our cases as down low as we really needed to,” Jha told CNN. 

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He also said that the US is the only advanced country to not have a proper contact tracing system, and all of those obstacles made reopening riskier. 

Jha said people should continue to maintain social distancing, wear masks, and to “put pressure” on the government to advance testing and contact tracing efforts. 

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