Past Predictions First:
For August
My prediction for the number of U.S. deaths from Covid-19 in August was: 30,798 deaths. The actual number turned out to be 30,961 deaths. I was off by less than one percent. For number of monthly cases, the actual number is 1,505,907 for August. I was off just under 17%, and my prediction was too high at 1,759,899 cases for August.
The actual number of cases for August was lower than my prediction. That’s bad news. A lower value in the seasonal low months of August and Sept. means higher highs in the seasonal high months of winter. And as we will see, that turned out to be true for October.
For September
I predicted 1,333,803 cases and 27,423 deaths from Covid-19 in the U.S. in September. Now we see that the actual cases was 1,235,486 and the actual deaths was 24,004. I was off by 7.37% for cases and 12.47% for deaths.
Deaths were lower than predicted for Sept. and will be much lower than predicted for Oct., probably because doctors are getting better at treating Covid-19. But cases is the number to watch. If cases goes too high, hospitals will be overwhelmed, and then the death rate will break and jump much higher.
For Sept., cases was lower than predicted, making it likely that cases in Oct., the month that transitions from the lows of Summer and Fall to the highs of Winter and early Spring, will be higher than predicted. And that turns out to be correct.
For October
Predicted cases was 1,795,505, and predicted deaths was 53,865. The actual values will be over 1.8 million for cases and less than half the predicted value for deaths at about 23,000 to 24,000 deaths.
Winter
Previously, the predicted cases was:
Nov. 2,325,054
Dec. 3,000,230
Jan. 3,359,331
Feb. 3,423,870
Mar. 3,485,099
Apr. 2,718,907
May 2,200,941
Jun. 1,459,571
But since August and Sept. were lower, and October higher, that implies the curve is higher in Winter. Revised prediction for cases of Covid-19 in Winter of 2020 to 2021 (at 5 to 10% higher).
Nov. 2.44 to 2.55 million cases
Dec. 3.15 to 3.3 million cases
Jan. 3.5 to 3.7 million cases
Feb. 3.6 to 3.75 million cases
Mar. 3.32 to 3.83 million cases
Apr. 2.85 to 3.0 million cases
May 2.3 to 2.4 million cases
Jun. 1.5 to 1.6 million cases
Notice that 3.6 million cases as the predicted low for February is twice the value for October at about 1.8 million cases of Covid-19 in the United States. At first glance, this suggests that hospitals may have twice as many Covid-19 patients. But an increase in the number of cases may also indicate an increase in the severity of cases, meaning that hospitals could have triple the number of Covid-19 in-patients. This will hit ERs and ICUs particularly hard.
And if hospitals are over-whelmed, then the death rate — which has been slowly decreasing since early May — could suddenly jump much higher. The predicted number of deaths for Oct. was over 50,000, but the actual deaths were under 25,000. If hospitals break due to an over-whelming number of cases this winter, deaths per month could be in the hundreds of thousands. This would necessitate a severe shut down, to lower the R-nought value and decrease the cases and deaths.
Or, we could begin a nationwide vitamin D supplementation program, which would lower the number of cases by half and the number of deaths to one fifth. There are over 30 vitamin D Covid-19 studies proving the benefits of vitamin D against Covid-19. The Covid-19 virus developed in bats, and bats live in the dark. They don’t use vitamin D the way that other mammals use vitamin D. So the virus has not evolved a way to fight against vitamin D. This is providential. God has given us a doorway out of the pandemic. And it works for the poor of the world as well, since vitamin D is made when sunshine hits skin. So the disadvantaged in developing nations can obtain vitamin D from sunshine, and persons in developed nations can obtain vitamin D from supplements (or sunshine, if they prefer).
There are some other supplements that might help against Covid-19, but vitamin D is the key.
Ronald L Conte Jr
Covid.us.org
an author, not a doctor
