Nearly 130000 Lives Will Be Saved By The End Of February 2021

Modeling cowid-19 scenarios for the United States, a modeling study published in nature medicine, points out that by February 28, 2021, more than 500000 people in the United States may die from cowid-19. The paper also estimated that universal face masks could protect many states from the worst effects of the rebound, and could save nearly 130000 of those 500000 lives.

Currently, there is no approved covid-19 vaccine in the United States, and there are few treatment options for covid-19. Therefore, non drug interventions such as wearing masks, keeping social distance, expanding detection and isolating infected people are the only means to reduce the spread of the virus.

Christopher Murray of the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington, and colleagues conducted a state-level epidemiological analysis of the spread of sars-cov-2 infection and the effect of non drug intervention in the United States from the first confirmed case to September 21, 2020. The authors used a "susceptibility, exposure, infection, rehabilitation" framework to assess the different scenarios of forced social isolation and mask use between September 22, 2020 and February 28, 2021 by incorporating predictions of multiple variables, including seasonal pneumonia, migration, detection rate, and per capita mask use. The authors found that in all scenarios, the United States is likely to continue to face the public health challenges posed by cowid-19 in winter, especially in densely populated states such as California, Texas, and Florida, which will face a large number of cases, deaths (as many as 511373) and medical resource runs.

But the author also said that the new epidemic and epidemic rebound is not inevitable. Many countries have maintained the trend of cowid-19 mitigation for a long time. Wearing masks is a relatively cheap and less influential way of intervention to save lives in the United States. The authors estimate that universal mask wearing (assuming that 95% of the people in each state insist on wearing masks in public places) may save 129574 lives beyond the forehead by the end of February 2021, and that an additional 95814 lives can be saved even in a slightly lower level of mask wearing scenario.