Models predict NC's COVID death rate will slow over next few months

According to the research center out of the University of Washington, the best-case scenario would result in an additional 3,437 people in North Carolina dying by May 1, amounting in more than 13,000 losing their lives to COVID-19 since the pandemic began almost a year ago.

The number is jarring. Still it's better than the predicted outcomes that have been projected over the last few months.

Over the last three months, almost 5,200 North Carolinians died from COVID-19.

The model is now taking vaccine distribution into account for all forecasts, which is a likely contributing factor to why they numbers are not as high as what had been predicted before.

The model has been making pretty accurate predictions. When we last looked at it and talked about the United States as a whole in December, at that point more than 337,000 Americans had died and the projections were forecasting, as a best-case scenario, an additional 100,000 people would die by February. The latest U.S. numbers show the reality is higher. More than 451,000 Americans have died, thus far, from the virus.