Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation
Virus Numbers Downgraded Again for Tennessee in IHME Model
Tennessee’s coronavirus peak and fatality numbers got another downgrade Monday from the widely used epidemic model from the University of Washington.
The numbers from the university’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) have been used by the White House and state and local governments across the country. It has long predicted a virus peak here in mid-to-late April.
But the model has been recently diminished as too optimistic after a Tennessee-specific model was developed by health care officials from Vanderbilt University in Nashville. That new model holds that the state’s peak won’t come until mid-May or mid-June under different scenarios. Updated numbers from the Vanderbilt model are not publicly updated.
Vanderbilt University
Read about Vanderbilt’s model here:
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The IHME model predicts the peak of cases here will come Thursday. On that day, the model predicts the state will need 632 regular hospitals beds, 151 ICU beds, and 137 ventilators. Under these predictions, the state’s health care facilities will not be swamped with virus patients. Needs for health care facilities here will begin to lower significantly by next week, according to the IHME.
Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation
The state’s daily death number has already peaked, according to the model. Monday was the deadliest day for the virus here with 20 deaths predicted, it said. The Tennessee Department of Health said Monday the state’s total death toll was 109. The department had not updated the figure as of Tuesday morning. Check back here for updated figures.
Also, the state’s total death toll was lowered from 587 last week to 481 on Monday in the updated model. IHME’s first predicted 3,422 Tennesseans would die from the virus by mid-May.
IHME’s predictions are all based on the assumption of full social distancing through May 2020.
Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation
For a look at coronavirus cases in Tennessee over time, check out this infographic made by Knoxville’s WATE-TV reporter Jack Lail:
Virus Numbers Downgraded Again for Tennessee in IHME Model
