US estimates for January 1, 2021

A moon or two ago, Josh posted a link to the IHME's first detailed global estimate for 1st January 2021.  There seemed to be some surprising results in that estiamte, so I have kept an eye on what might be happening, especially as some of the ranges of probability seemed to be huge (ie they were saying there was a lot of uncertainty).

Now, over a month later I checked up on some of the estimates for countries that currently have high numbers of deaths.  And have noticed some changes.   I am happy that people can update forecasts as more data has come in.  I also notice that they have also extended their data out the the end of February.  One conclusion is that in a 2½ month time frame their three different scenarios are not too different, but anything beyond that really messes up their 'crystal ball'.

The updates show good news for USA https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america?view=total-deaths&tab=trend

The old estimate was for 410 000 deaths under the "most likely situation"  Now the estimates are 351, 637 for the 'worst case';  323,337 for the 'most likely' and 277,127 for the 'best case'.  So things are looking much better in the USA. (from the old estimate they expected the country to basically loose control in November of December, but it is not looking as if things will accelerate too much).

Unfortunately for the country I am a citizen of, the UK is now estimated to have significantly more deaths than they estimated 1-1½ months ago.  101,374 for the 'most likely'

For Josh, the Netherlands' estimate is now lower than they first guessed. 22,971 for 'most likely'.

To find your country, follow the link above, click on the box at the top with an arrow next to it, and type in the country (or state, or region of larger countries) and enjoy.