The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued a prediction on the latest coronavirus pandemic projections. The organization has stated that it expects deaths due to the virus to reach 135,461 Americans by the middle of July.
“The state-level ensemble forecasts suggest that the number of new deaths over the next four weeks in Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Hawaii, North Carolina, Oregon, South Carolina, and Utah will likely exceed the number reported over the last four weeks,” the CDC said on its forecasting website.
READ MORE: Florida, Texas and Arizona see record highs for new COVID-19 cases
The modeling is created using data collected by more than two dozen national and international research organizations.
Other states are seeing steady decreases in virus transmission including New York State, Michigan, and New Jersey. According to COVID Act Now, the states are the only three on track to “contain” the virus.
In Michigan, Governor Gretchen Whitmer extended the state of emergency order which differs from the state’s stay-at-home order which has been lifted in phases.
“I think we’ve done a great job in Michigan” of driving down coronavirus numbers, said Emily Martin, a University of Michigan epidemiologist. “We really look like we’re in a strong position, and we’re continuing to see decreases (in cases and deaths), which is really phenomenal.”
In New York, Governor Andrew Cuomo told Good Morning America that he credited citizens for declining infections, “I gave them the facts literally every day and they acted responsibly.”
FULL INTERVIEW: @NYGovCuomo sits down one-on-one with @arobach and opens up about what he’s learned as New York’s governor 100 days into lockdown, what he thinks of the federal government’s response to the pandemic and what he hopes for as America starts to reopen. pic.twitter.com/QIh5rAqBoi
— Good Morning America (@GMA) June 17, 2020
Cuomo says that the trust of citizens in their leadership has been essential during the pandemic. He lamented the loss of more than 30,000 New Yorkers, saying, “everyone who died, we did the best we could.”
To date, there have been over two million Americans infected with coronavirus and over 120,000 deaths. Despite the increasing numbers in infections and deaths, President Donald Trump continues to contend that the virus will “go away.”
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“We’re very close to a vaccine and we’re very close to therapeutics, really good therapeutics,” Trump said Wednesday night in a television interview with Fox News.
“But even without that, I don’t even like to talk about that, because it’s fading away, it’s going to fade away, but having a vaccine would be really nice and that’s going to happen.”
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