Chilling British Study Says A Million Americans Could Die Of COVID-19 If US Does Not Change Its Approach

Attempts to mitigate or slow COVID-19 pandemic, rather than suppressing it, could overwhelm the healthcare systems, particularly the critical care bed requirements, and lead to about 2.5 lakh deaths in the United Kingdom and over a million in the United States, a chilling study by UK epidemiologists predicts.

Researchers at London’s Imperial College in an ominous report said that even stringent mitigation measures of case isolation, home quarantine, and social distancing, “the surge limits for both general ward and ICU beds would be exceeded by at least 8-fold under the more optimistic scenario for critical care requirements that we examined. In addition, even if all patients were able to be treated, we predict there would still be in the order of 250,000 deaths in GB, and 1.1-1.2 million in the US”.

On Monday, the UK Govt had introduced steps like social distancing and home quarantine and also called on vulnerable and elderly Britons to isolate themselves for 12 weeks.

In the US too, President Donald Trump introduced a 15-day plan to slow down new infections, combining strict recommendations about staying home and avoiding gatherings of over 10 people, among other measures.

The study concludes that the suppression strategy will likely lead to the disease quickly spreading again once these measures are lifted, and that such measures will be needed periodically until a vaccine is found. "The major challenge of suppression is that this type of intensive intervention package — or something equivalently effective at reducing transmission — will need to be maintained until a vaccine becomes available (potentially 18 months or more) — given that we predict that transmission will quickly rebound if interventions are relaxed," the study said.