Cases Of Covid-19 In US Are Growing At A Faster Rate Than Any Other Country In The World

The United States and South Korea each reported their first confirmed case of the coronavirus to the World Health Organization on January 20, 2020. Two months later, new cases in South Korea have dropped 90% in three weeks, while the number of new cases in the United States is growing at a faster rate than any other country in the world, according to research by John Hopkins University.

A report by The Imperial College of London Covid-19 Response Team estimates the total number of US deaths as somewhere between 1.1 million and 2.2 million.

In the (unlikely) absence of any control measures or spontaneous changes in individual behaviour ... we predict 81% of the GB [Great Britain] and US populations would be infected over the course of the epidemic. Epidemic timings are approximate given the limitations of surveillance data in both countries: The epidemic is predicted to be broader in the US than in GB and to peak slightly later [June 20, 2020]. ... In total, in an unmitigated epidemic, we would predict approximately 510,000 deaths in GB and 2.2 million in the US, not accounting for the potential negative effects of health systems being overwhelmed on mortality.

After South Korea saw a spike in cases in late February, it immediately took action, testing its citizens at the highest rate in the world. The US has tested only 135,000 people, according to the COVID Tracking Project, so it has no idea how many Americans are infected or where the cases are concentrated. The United States has still done only a bit more than 10 percent as many tests per capita as Canada, Austria and Denmark.

Sharon Lerner, The Intercept, March 17 2020:

Even taking critical steps such as social distancing of the entire population, isolation of the sick in their homes, and quarantining family members of the sick, the epidemic will likely soon overwhelm the critical care capacity of American hospitals, according to the [Imperial College of London] report. ...

A lack of medical capacity, including a shortage of ventilators and the respiratory therapists who operate the machines, is expected to make the outbreak especially dangerous. In their report, the researchers from the Imperial College of London predicted that in an uncontrolled epidemic, the need for beds in hospitals' intensive care or critical care units would be exceeded as early as the second week in April in both the U.S. and the U.K., with an eventual peak "that is over 30 times greater than the maximum supply in both countries."

Donald Trump and his administration dismissed the threat for months, saying they were not "concerned at all". On the day Trump claimed the virus had been "shut down" in the US, there were 11 reported cases. There are now more than 20,000.

This graph shows the number of confirmed cases in the United States and South Korea (Our World In Data, which uses data from the European Center for Disease Control and Prevention, not the World Health Organization). Remember: The US has had only limited testing, so the number of cases is likely much higher.

Nicholas Kristof, New York Times, March 20, 2020:

Dr. Neil M. Ferguson, a British epidemiologist who is regarded as one of the best disease modelers in the world, produced a sophisticated model with a worst case of 2.2 million deaths in the United States.

I asked Ferguson for his best case. "About 1.1 million deaths," he said.

[T]he United States should be urgently ramping up investment in vaccines and therapies, addressing the severe shortages of medical supplies and equipment, and giving retired physicians and military medics legal authority to practice in a crisis. ...

China adopted protocols for protective gear that are more rigorous than those in the United States ... Not one of the 42,000 health workers sent to Wuhan is known to have become infected with the coronavirus. The United States isn't protecting health workers with the same determination; it seems to be betraying them.

The Imperial College of London Covid-19 Response Team, of which Ferguson is a member, shared its findings (pdf) with the White House task force on the virus "about a week ago".

All evidence indicates that the White House has chosen to ignore the information.