Michigan Coronavirus Forecast Adjusts Once Again — This Time, For The Better

By Laina G. Stebbins, Michigan Advance

The data model from the University of Washington, known as the most optimistic forecast of the COVID-19 outbreak, has seen some major updates over the course of the past few months and at least three in May alone.

The latest two UWash updates for Michigan this week come with relatively good news — although, given the frequency of the shifting numbers, it’s hard to say with great certainty whether the new trends will hold.

As of Tuesday night’s update, the model now predicts that Michigan will peak at 5,801 COVID-19 deaths by August 4. This is 242 fewer deaths than had been projected earlier this week, as the previous update had shown a peak of 6,043 COVID-19 deaths by that time.

Compare both of these to UWash’s May 4 update. Just two days before, the state of Michigan reported so many deaths from COVID-19 that the official death count (4,020) surpassed what UWash had projected to be the final death toll by early August (3,920).

As a result, UWash had to nearly double its projections and bump Michigan’s numbers up to a forecasted 7,080 deaths by early August.

That number since then has decreased by 1,279.

The newest update with lower projections also shows a continued decline in daily deaths for the state. Other graphs compare Michigan to other states and national figures in terms of social distancing, testing and more, while a map of infections for each state shows that Michigan is thought to have an estimated 10.33 infections per 100,000.

The UWash model has also adjusted its numbers downward for the United States as a whole, albeit very slightly. The peak U.S. death toll by August had been at about 134,000 earlier in May, and has since been lowered just shy of 132,000.