Harvard Health Expert Predicts 100K More COVID-19 Deaths By September

Dr. Ashish Jha, the director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, is predicting that the number of coronavirus deaths in the United States will double by September. As states have started to reopen, there has been an increase in the number of new cases and hospitalizations.

Jha said the spike in cases in the two weeks since Memorial Day is concerning, and he worried about what that means going into the summer. 

"I'd hoped that (because) people are spending more time outside ... that we would not see such a big increase so fast, but it's more concerning than I'd hoped," Jha said.

Jha believes that the United States opened up too quickly and is at risk of a second wave spreading across the country.

"We're really the only major country in the world that opened back up without really getting our cases as down low as we really needed to," Jha told CNN.

He explained that currently, between 800-1,000 die every day from COVID-19, and he expects the U.S. to reach 200,000 fatalities by September. As of June 11, more than 112,000 people in the United States have died from the coronavirus.

Jha said he expects the pandemic to last well into the fall.

"The pandemic won't be over in September," Jha said. "So, I'm really worried about where we're going to be in the weeks and months ahead."

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