Coronavirus deaths lag behind surging infections but may catch up soon

With novel coronavirus infections setting a single-day national record Wednesday, health experts are taking little solace from one of the few bright spots in the current resurgence: Deaths are not rising in lockstep with caseloads.

But that may be just a matter of time.

“Deaths always lag considerably behind cases,” Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious-disease specialist, told Congress at a hearing Tuesday. In the weeks to come, he and others said, the death toll is likely to rise commensurately.

Which means Arizona, Texas and Florida, states that reopened early and now are experiencing runaway infection rates, are likely to be burying more dead in July.

“As long as there is a fair amount of testing going on, if there is an uptick in covid-19 infections, then we are likely to see that in the confirmed case data before we see it in the death data,” said Nicholas G. Reich, associate professor of biostatistics at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, in an email.

He predicted “rises in covid-19 deaths over the next month in many of the states that are seeing upticks in cases, like Texas, California, Florida and others, even though the deaths have been either steady or declining in recent weeks.”

The virus has come surging back in recent days, with 38,173 U.S. infections on Wednesday, more than any previous day in the pandemic, including the catastrophic days of April. This time, the increases are mainly in the South and West, while New York and New Jersey, which were nearly overwhelmed in the spring and have been slow to reopen, are seeing declining cases.