Incoming CDC director expects 500,000 COVID deaths by mid-february

Dr. Rochelle Walensky, who is nominated to lead the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, expects the country’s coronavirus death toll to reach 500,000 by mid-february. That would be a jump of about 100,000 in just a few weeks since the number of confirmed deaths was just short of 400,000 on Monday.

“By the middle of February, we expect half a million deaths in this country,” she told CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday.

The grim prediction comes after another devastating week in the U.S., with the seven-day average for new deaths surging past 3,300, according to The COVID Tracking Project. The latest numbers reflect a surge of infections and hospitalizations in multiple states, including Alabama, Arizona, California and Florida.

Walensky, who currently serves as chief of the infectious diseases division at Massachusetts General

Hospital, said her estimate doesn’t even account for the tens of thousands of people who are living with “a yet uncharacterized syndrome” long after recovering from the virus.

“And we still yet haven’t seen the ramifications of what happened from the holiday travel, from holiday gathering in terms of high rates of hospitalizations and the deaths thereafter,” she said. “So, yes, I think we still have some dark weeks ahead.”

The outgoing CDC director, Dr. Robert Redfield, issued a similar warning over the weekend, telling NPR that the country is “about to be in the worst” phase of the pandemic.