Ashish Jha, the head of Harvard's Global Health Institute, told CNN in an interview on Wednesday that without drastic action, the number of U.S. deaths would march on.
"Even if we don't have increasing cases, even if we keep things flat, it's reasonable to expect that we're going to hit 200,000 deaths sometime during the month of September," Jha said. "And that's just through September. The pandemic won't be over in September."
Jha added: "I'm really worried about where we're going to be in the weeks and months ahead."
Total U.S. coronavirus-related deaths totaled 112,754 on Wednesday, the most in the world. Jha said that was directly tied to the fact the United States was the only major country to reopen without getting its case growth to a controlled level - a rate of people testing positive for the coronavirus remaining at 5% or lower for at least 14 days.
