My over/under for how many daily Covid infections the U.S. will see by the end of the year is 750,000.
Our model has us hitting about 1 million daily by New Year's Eve. The model accounts for historical variation and current trends, but not the atypical state of subvariant evolution. If winter transmission picks up more like usual, such as if LP.8.1. takes off, 1 million is likely spot on.
However, if LP.8.1. does not take off, 700K is probably a better estimate. If the CDC numbers are flat next Friday, take 200k of the model's Dec peak, putting it closer to 800k. If flat in their next two reports, expect closer to 600k. These low-end predictions are greatly at odds with the prior winters of the pandemic and would support a broader change in strategy in how public health agencies advice the public on "winter virus season."
There is more uncertainty now than any time in the past 2.5 years, IMO. The data coming in are very slow, volatile to retroactive corrections, and variable by region. Examples:
🔹Biobot (20% weight in our model) did not report last Wednesday, and still has not reported.
🔹Several technical issues with the CDC dashboard (80% model weight), such as some likely minor coding errors two reports ago.
🔹Walgreens shows an increasing national average in testing positivity
🔹WastewaterSCAN shows a moderate increase in the Midwest and huge increase in the Northeast, but their estimates often change considerably in hindsight
🔹The CDC has Covid ED visits rising as of late Nov, transmission forecasted to be increasing in 28 states and declining in 3 states.
Stay tuned, and if the peak in the remainder of 2024 is at the smaller end, encourage others to track transmission more closely in early 2025, where we could see concerning transmission.
Info for new readers:
For those unfamiliar with the PMC model, find full weekly reports for the past 14+ months at pmc19.com/data
The models combine data from IHME, Biobot, and CDC to use wastewater to estimate case levels (r = .93 to .96) and forecast levels the next month based on typical levels for that date and recent patterns of changes in transmission the past 4 weeks. Our work has been cited in top scientific journals and media outlets, which are fully sourced in a detailed technical appendix at pmc19.com/data/PMC_COVID…
Examples include JAMA Onc, JAMA-NO, BMC Public Health, Time, People, TODAY, the Washington Post, the Institute for New Economic Thinking, Salon, Forbes, the New Republic, Fox, CBS, and NBC. See pgs 11-13 at the above link.
We will have a pre-print out in the next month documenting very compelling evidence for the validity of using wastewater to estimate case rates. Forecasting is challenging in the context of the current viral evolution, but the real-time estimates of cases are impressively accurate to the best we can evaluate it.
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We estimate 1 in 148 Americans are actively infectious. This equates to 2.3 million infections/week, expected to result in >100,000 new #LongCOVID conditions & >800 deaths.
A room of 100 people is a coin toss of an exposure.
2) PMC COVlD Dashboard, July 14, 2025 (U.S.) 🧵
Transmission (red) is closely tracking the path of 2 years ago (yellow). However, the incoming data are spotty. >20% of CDC states have limited/no data, & Biobot hasn't reported in weeks.
Could be MUCH worse or slightly better.
3) PMC COVlD Dashboard, July 14, 2025 (U.S.) 🧵
Our model formalizes the mathematical assumptions in those predictions. If transmission follows what we know in terms of how waves grow or slow generally and historical patterns, this is what we'd expect.
The spottiness of the current real-time data reduce precision substantially. Retroactive corrections can make the forecast jump around from better to worse from one week to the next. Expect the worst. Hope for the best.
🌍Want to track COVID transmission accurately worldwide?
This PMC thread walks you through leading dashboards with information more up to date than WHO & EU directories.
🧵 1/
The Pandemic Mitigation Collaborative (PMC) Dashboard provides weekly COVID updates for the U.S., using wastewater surveillance derived case estimation models and analytic forecasting.
Our international directory includes official government dashboards & those developed by citizen scientists.
We exclude countries that have stopped reporting in the past 2-12 months even if on EU or WHO lists. We also exclude low-quality data from opt-in testing programs.
🧵 3/
🔥Biggest uptick since Jan
🔥1 in 167 actively infectious
🔥>2 million weekly infections
🔥700-1,200 resulting excess deaths from weekly infections
Track transmission closer to home w/our new state & international resources 👇
🧵1/6
PMC COVlD Dashboard, Jun 23, 2025 (U.S.)
🔹With >90% probability, we have entered the 11th COVlD wave.
🔹In a room of 50 people, there is already a 1 in 4 chance of an exposure.
🔹We expect nearly 15 million infections in the next month, and rising.
🧵2/6
PMC COVlD Dashboard, Jun 23, 2025 (U.S.)
We continue to expect transmission to break 500,000 daily infections in the U.S. around July 9th.
This is the same prediction as last week, as the forecast was dead on. Yet, there is considerably uncertainty around this timing.
Current transmission (red line) closely tracks that of summer 2023 (yellow line).
We expect to break 500k daily infections between July 9 and the end of July. Our current forecast...
2) PMC COVlD Dashboard, June 16, 2025 (U.S.)
Our current forecast is a bit more aggressive, predicting breaking 500k daily infections by July 9. The 2023 trend suggests end of July.
The 95% confidence interval shows large variation. Note that...
3) PMC COVlD Dashboard, June 16, 2025 (U.S.)
Note that CDC and Biobot both had retroactive corrections to last week's data, meaning the relative "lull" will last a little longer than the uncorrected data suggested. No big news on NB.1.8.1.
1) Here's a quick example of how the federal government is censoring the best scientific research. It's not just cuts to ongoing research.
It's new grant submissions too...
2) In January, I re-submitted a promising Covid/cancer grant to a non-federal funder. Hundreds of pages. Hundreds of hours of work. The best proposal I've submitted as a scientist.
Out of curiosity, I used Sean Mullen's Scan Assist tool to see how many banned words it had...
3) The proposal had 1,750 banned words. No big deal -- they're non-federal.
BUT I had planned to submit a smaller version to NIH this month as a "back up." Impossible!
It's not a matter of using a thesaurus or the find/replace command. The grant is on *Covid*...
CDC wastewater surveillance data show transmission rising. This is our forecast if transmission growth follows typical patterns.
The high & low estimates could be thought of as optimistic & pessimistic scenarios for NB.1.8.1.
2) PMC COVlD Dashboard, June 9, 2025
Notice that current transmission (red line, lower left) tracks closely with two years ago (yellow), slightly below the median (gray), and not far below last year (orange).
Consider each of these trajectories realistic scenarios.
3) PMC COVlD Dashboard, June 9, 2025
All indications are that we are headed into the start of an 11th national wave in the U.S.
We could percolate near the lull point another couple weeks (fingers crossed), but that scenario is becoming less likely.