Coronavirus could kill millions of Americans this year alone in a worst-case scenario — more than 10 times more than die from either cancer or heart disease, according to reports.
Figures compiled by The New York Times compare the potential losses from COVID-19 compared to other leading causes of death in the US depending on both its infection and fatality rate.
At its highest — with 70% getting infected, and 3% of those dying — that would lead to a terrifying 6.99 million deaths this year, the figures show, with the pandemic potentially spreading well into next year.
That is 10.6 times the 655,381 who died in America in 2018 from heart disease, and 11.6 times more than 599,274 who died from cancer that same year, the last with available data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Times said.
While most experts predict a far lower death toll, DailyMail.com called the number a feared worst-case scenario, and the percentages tally with other warnings from other nations.
The UK has suggested up to 80% of its citizens could end up infected, while the World Health Organization (WHO) previously pegged the death rate at 3.4%, far higher than the models are predicting.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention came up with four most-likely scenarios for the pandemic, with its worst one far lower — but still killing 1.7 million Americans, The New York Times previously reported.
That is still more than two-and-a-half times more than those who died from either heart disease or cancer in 2018 — and more than the top four other causes of death combined.
Tom Frieden, who was CDC director in the Obama administration, predicts the worst outcome at 1.635 million deaths, with half the country infected and a 1% fatality rate.
He called it “a worst-case scenario—but unfortunately one that’s not implausible.”
“We need to plan for the worst and work for the best,” he warned.
“The sooner we act, the more we can decrease the likelihood of a million deaths in the United States.”