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U.S. Department of Health & Human Services

10/27/2021 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 10/27/2021 07:49

COVID-19 Forecasts: Deaths

Reported and forecasted new and total COVID-19 deaths as of October 25, 2021.

Interpretation of Forecasts of New and Total Deaths

  • This week's national ensemble predicts that the number of newly reported COVID-19 deaths will likely decrease over the next 4 weeks, with 3,800 to 11,400 new deaths likely reported in the week ending November 20, 2021. The national ensemble predicts that a total of 758,000 to 783,000 COVID-19 deaths will be reported by this date.
  • The state- and territory-level ensemble forecasts predict that over the next 4 weeks, the number of newly reported deaths per week will likely decrease in 18 jurisdictions, which are indicated in the forecast plots below. Trends in numbers of future reported deaths are uncertain or predicted to remain stable in the other states and territories.
  • Ensemble forecasts combine diverse independent team forecasts into one forecast. They have been among the most reliable forecasts in performance over time, but even the ensemble forecasts do not reliably predict rapid changes in the trends of reported cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. They should not be relied upon for making decisions about the possibility or timing of rapid changes in trends.

National Forecast

  • The figures show the number of new (top row) and total (bottom row) COVID-19 deaths reported in the United States each week from August 21 through October 23 and forecasted over the next 4 weeks, through November 20.
  • This week, ensemble forecasts of new reported COVID-19 deaths included forecasts from 24 modeling groups, each of which contributed a forecast for new or total deaths for at least one jurisdiction.
  • Models make various assumptions about the levels of social distancing and other interventions, which may not reflect recent changes in behavior. See model descriptions below for details on the assumptions and methods used to produce the forecasts.

Download national forecast data excel icon [XLS - 17 KB]

State Forecasts

State-level forecasts show the predicted number of new COVID-19 deaths for the next 4 weeks by state. Each state forecast figure uses a different scale due to differences in the number of COVID-19 deaths between states and only forecasts meeting a set of ensemble inclusion criteria are shown. Further details are available here: https://covid19forecasthub.org/doc/ensemble/external icon . Plots of the state-level ensemble forecast and the underlying data can be downloaded below.

Download state forecasts pdf icon [PDF - 1 MB]

Download forecast data excel icon [CSV - 765 KB]

Additional forecast data and information on forecast submission are available at the COVID-19 Forecast Hubexternal icon .

Forecast Inclusion, Evaluation, and Assumptions

The teams with forecasts included in the ensembles are displayed below. Forecasts are included when they meet a set of submission and data quality requirements, further described here: https://github.com/reichlab/covid19-forecast-hub#ensemble-modelexternal icon .

Ensemble and individual team forecast performance is evaluated using a variety of metrics, including the assessment of prediction interval coverage, available at https://delphi.cmu.edu/forecast-eval/external icon .

The forecasts make different assumptions about social distancing measures. Additional individual model details are available here: https://github.com/cdcepi/COVID-19-Forecasts/blob/master/COVID-19_Forecast_Model_Descriptions.md.external icon Details on the ensemble's accuracy in short-term predictions and its usefulness as a real-time tool to help guide policy and planning can be found here: Ensemble Forecasts of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in the U.S.external icon

Intervention assumptions fall into multiple categories:

1 The full range of the prediction intervals is not visible for all state plots. Please see the forecast data for the full range of state-specific prediction intervals.