From the study led by Neil Ferguson: "Perhaps our most significant conclusion is that mitigation is unlikely to be feasible without emergency surge capacity limits of the UK and US healthcare systems being exceeded many times over. In the most effective mitigation strategy examined, which leads to a single, relatively short epidemic (case isolation, household quarantine and social distancing of the elderly), 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.".
Note that these figure are based on mitigation, not suppression.
The higher numbers for both the U.K. and the US are based on a less than perfect mitigation strategy. Great Britain is adopting the suppression strategy, the US is practicing a mitigation strategy that is not being followed by 100% of Americans. Far from it, people are ignoring the guidelines in large numbers. Hence every day we see governors taking more measures, like blockading parking lots at beaches and parks. Every day, my own governor mentions people still doing stupid things, and every day she stands there, says "knock it off", and clamps down further, because compliance is simply not close to 100%.
Dr. Birx indicated Fauci's highest numbers are based on the US "doing nothing", but, at the same time, the best case scenario of up to 240,000 fatalities depends on "100% of Americans doing precisely what is required". And everything I've seen in the patchwork state by state response seems to show that 100% of Americans are not adhering to the guidelines. To limit fatalities to 100,000-240,000 requires perfect adherence, if I understand Birx and Fauci correctly, and I am not seeing that perfect adherence now. And Trump is leaving lockdowns to the states, he does not intend to issue any nation-wide shelter in place orders.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/dr-deborah-birx-predicts-200-000-deaths-if-we-do-n1171876
In an interview on "TODAY," Dr. Deborah Birx painted a grim message about the expected fatalities, echoing that they could hit more than 2 million without any measures, as
coronavirus casescontinue to climb throughout the country.
Birx said the projections by Dr. Anthony Fauci that U.S. deaths could range from 1.6 million to 2.2 million is a worst case scenario if the country did "nothing" to contain the outbreak, but said even "if we do things almost perfectly," she still predicts up to 200,000 U.S. deaths.
Birx said the best case scenario would be for "100 percent of Americans doing precisely what is required, but we're not sure that all of America is responding in a uniform way to protect one another," referencing images circulating online of people still congregating in big groups and
ignoring guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
