A new forecast from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington establishes the danger of two new variants of COVID-19, warning of the possibility of a surge of deaths later this year, even despite the vaccine rollout.
According to the report, B.1.351 — the South African variant — could lead to around 654,000 total deaths in the United States by May 1 and a reversal of declining cases if it becomes widespread and mobility returns to pre-pandemic levels. This, researchers warned, shows the importance of remaining in place as much as possible and social distancing as necessary, since these efforts could reduce the number of deaths by as much as 30,000, even in that worst case.
“What we’re seeing is sobering and will require us to continue taking this pandemic very seriously,” Christopher Murray, director of IHME, said. “Getting vaccines out quickly is essential, and masks are still one of the best tools we have to keep transmission low and avoid the worst possible outcome. People will need to continue taking precautions even once they are vaccinated because of the potential for more contagious variants to spread.”
While the prevalence of the South African variant could shift one way or the other, all scenarios forecast by the university include the presence of the B.1.1.7 (UK) variant. With just the UK variant alone, however, death predictions by May in the United States drop to 595,000, although even this is an increase from last week’s predictions, owing to some states’ failures to reimpose social distancing mandates.
“We have not been seeing governments taking action to apply cautionary measures as quickly as expected and have incorporated that information into the modeling,” Murray said. “Without measures to control the spread of the disease, mobility remains higher, and transmission is more likely.”
IHME further predicted that only 38 percent of people in the United States will be immune in one fashion or another by May 1. Herd immunity is therefore unlikely to slow transmission in the coming months, especially with the large amounts of vaccine hesitancy: as many as 25 percent of people have indicated they would reject a vaccine outright, and another 25 percent are uncertain.