Dr. Fauci, I’ll be
brief. I said
last Thursday that you need to admit you’ve been fairly ineffective in changing
the course of America’s disastrous response to the novel coronavirus (and if
you don’t agree with that assessment, see the numbers below). But I didn’t
think there was any point in your resigning at that point, since I thought
that, by stating publicly last Tuesday that the maximum number of deaths in the
US from the pandemic would be 240,000 - without stating boldly that this would
require a total lockdown of the country immediately - you had put your stamp of
approval on Trump’s current course. When the total inevitably passed that (which
it did yesterday. My numbers below show that, if we instituted a total lockdown
today, the total deaths from the pandemic would be 258,000), Trump would just
claim that he was relying on your numbers, because you didn’t make clear the
big assumption behind them. If you resigned last Thursday, how could you
possibly justify doing so, given what you’d just told the nation on Tuesday?
But the whole
reason that Americans want you there is that they believe Trump will in general
listen to what you say, even when it’s not what he wants to hear. However, the
fact that he doesn’t listen to you – and won’t in the future – became clearly
evident in the press conference yesterday, when Trump again touted
hydroxychloroquine as a cure for COVID-19. As you have said repeatedly, there
is still no sold medical evidence that is the case, although trials are
ongoing. And when members of the press asked if you agreed with him (you were
there next to Trump), he wouldn’t let you answer – although he very truthfully
pointed out that you had already answered the question many times. Evidently,
he’s glad to have you answer questions, but only if you give the answer he
wants.
How can you
possibly keep working for Trump after this? You need to resign today, so that
you can talk freely with the American people about the real dangers. And what
are they? Here are some of the numbers from below. These are based on simple
projections of current trends (which BTW have been going down, but at this
point the only effect of those drops is to postpone Doomsday by a week or so).
Date
on which 500,000 deaths will be set in stone*: April 12
Date
on which 1 million total pandemic deaths will be set in stone: April 18
Number
of deaths set in stone on April 30: 3,603,124
Date
on which the number of new deaths on that day will probably exceed the
toll of Sept. 11: April 9 (yes, this Thursday!)
Number
of deaths per day on April 30: 80,264
All numbers below
are based on yesterday’s reported figures of total confirmed cases, total
deaths and total recoveries, published on Worldometers as of about 7 PM EDT April
5. I’m happy to send my spreadsheet that calculates all of these to anyone who
wants to check the calculations, although they follow the assumptions described
below.
I. Numbers based on total cases,
actual and projected
Total US confirmed
cases: 336,851
Increase in cases
since previous day: 25,214 (vs. 34,030 increase yesterday)
Percent increase
in cases since yesterday: 8% (vs. 12% yesterday)
Percent increase
in cases since 3 days previous: 37% (vs. 45% yesterday)
“Set in stone” US deaths* over course of
pandemic: 258,640
(based on 4% case mortality rate)
*This number assumes a) Total cases grow by
30% into the future (= yesterday’s 3-day growth rate in cases); b) We impose a
massive lockdown, with prohibition of all non-essential travel, today; c) New
cases drop to zero in 28 days, because of the lockdown, but they continue to
grow at the current projected rate up to the 28th day; d) testing is
widely available by the 28-day mark; and e) case mortality rate = 4%. To
consider a 6% mortality rate, multiply each projection by 1.5. For 8%, double
it. For comparison, Italy’s case mortality rate is currently 11.75%.
Projected as of April 13 (7 days from today):
These numbers answer the question:
What would happen if we wait seven days to totally lock down the US, based on
the assumptions below (which frankly are themselves wildly optimistic).
Total expected cases*: 801,329 (vs. 846,320 projected yesterday)
Total expected deaths set in stone* over
course of pandemic: 589,040 (vs. 1,076,775 projected yesterday)
* The expected cases and deaths set in stone numbers
assume a) Total cases grow by 30% into the future (= yesterday’s 3-day growth
rate in cases); b) We impose a massive lockdown, with prohibition of all non-essential
travel, on April 13; c) New cases drop to zero in 28 days, because of the
lockdown, but they continue to grow at the current projected rate up to the 28th
day; d) Testing is widely available by the
28-day mark; and e) case mortality rate = 4%. To consider a 6% mortality rate,
multiply each projection by 1.5. For 8%, double it. For comparison, Italy’s case
mortality rate is currently 12.25%.
Projected as of April 20 (14 days from today):
These numbers answer the question:
What would happen if we wait 14 days to totally lock down the US, based on the
assumptions below (which frankly are themselves very optimistic)?
Total expected cases*: 1,625,701 (vs. 1,997,510 projected yesterday)
Total deaths set in stone* over course of pandemic:
1,248,242 (vs. 2,585,407 projected yesterday)
* The expected cases and deaths set in stone
numbers assume a) Total cases grow by 30% into the future (= yesterday’s 3-day
growth rate in cases); b) We impose a massive lockdown, with prohibition of all
non-essential travel, on April 20; c) New cases drop to zero in 28 days,
because of the lockdown, but they continue to grow at the current projected
rate up to the 28th day;; d) Testing is widely available by the
28-day mark; and e) case mortality rate = 4%. To consider a 6% mortality rate,
multiply each projection by 1.5. For 8%, double it. For comparison, Italy’s
case mortality rate is currently 11.75%.
Date on which
500,000 deaths will be set in stone: April 12
Date on which 1
million total pandemic deaths will be set in stone: April 18
Number of deaths
set in stone on April 30: 3,603,124
II. Numbers based on total deaths,
reported and projected
None of these numbers are changed, since
they’re not based on the total case projections.
Total US deaths as of yesterday: 9,620
Increase in deaths since previous day: 1,625 (vs. 1,048 yesterday)
Percent increase in deaths since previous day: 19% (vs. 14% yesterday)
Projected* number of actual deaths on 4/13
alone: 4,134
Projected* number of actual deaths on 4/20
alone: 16,003
* Projected deaths = previous day’s new
deaths number, grown by that day’s 3-day percentage growth rate. Note this is
calculated completely differently from the deaths set in stone, which refers to
projected deaths over the entire pandemic, and is calculated by multiplying
expected cases by the mortality rate
Date on which
the number of new deaths on that day will probably exceed the toll of
Sept. 11: April 9 (yes, this Thursday!)
Number of deaths
on that day on April 30: 80,264
III. Reported case mortality rate so far in the pandemic in the
US:
These
numbers are also unaffected by the error I made.
Total
Recoveries in US as of yesterday: 17,977
Total
Deaths as of yesterday: 9,620
Deaths
so far as percentage of closed cases (=deaths + recoveries): 35% Let’s be
clear. This means that, of all the coronavirus cases that have been closed so
far in the US, 35% of them have resulted in death (compare that to the 4%
mortality rate I’ve been using to calculate total pandemic deaths, based on total
cases). Of course, this number will come down as time goes on and more cases
are closed in which the victim recovered. But it’s only come down by about 4
percentage points since Worldometers started publishing the recovery rate on
March 26, and on about half the days, it’s gone up. I’d say it’s much more
likely my 4% mortality rate will turn out to be too low, after the pandemic’s
over and all of the bodies have been counted, than it will be too high.
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