IHME in the news

Researchers at the University of Washington’s Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation estimate that more than 33,000 people have died already in China from COVID, seven times the official number -- which at 4,638 gives it one of the lowest death tolls in the world. A further 136,000 people are expected to die in the country between now and Aug. 1, said Ali Mokdad, chief strategy officer for population health at the university.

Ali Mokdad, an epidemiologist at the University of Washington who was formerly of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, identified another reason why scaling back public testing could prove risky.

Limited testing is “dangerous,” Ali Mokdad, an epidemiologist at the University of Washington, told The Times. “If you don’t test, then you don’t know what variants you have.”

“That’s dangerous,” Ali Mokdad, an epidemiologist at the University of Washington, and formerly of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in a recent interview. “If you don’t test, then you don’t know what variants you have.”

The rate in the US is eight times greater than in Canada, which has the seventh highest rate of gun ownership in the world; 22 times higher than in the European Union and 23 times greater than in Australia, according to Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) data from 2019.  

According to the 2019 Global Burden of Disease study, headache disorders are one of the major public health concerns globally. This study shows that migraines are the second cause of disability worldwide and the first for women under 50.

Stovner said the overall findings chime with previous estimates of headache prevalence, including the Global Burden of Disease study.

Dr. Ali Mokdad, an epidemiologist with the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, told ABC News that early evidence suggests people who were infected with the original omicron variant during the previous wave may now have some immunity against BA.2.

Across the nation, mask-wearing is at its lowest level since April 2020, said Ali Mokdad, a professor of health metrics sciences at the University of Washington in Seattle.

Endemic diseases are not without suffering, Chart. Source: University of Washington Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. 

Christopher Murray, director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington, noted the BA.2 COVID-19 variant appeared to result in a rise in cases that only lasts about three weeks.

Dr. Christopher Murray, a professor at the University of Washington whose institute has modeled the pandemic’s trends, predicted that antiviral treatments like the pills recently developed by Pfizer will cut mortality rates even if a new variant as infectious as Omicron and as deadly as Delta emerges.

The FDA's vaccine advisers will hear from experts at the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation in Seattle on modeling future Covid-19 outbreaks.

BA.2 became dominant in the U.S. last week, and now appears on track to displace the earlier version of omicron, BA.1. Ali Mokdad, an epidemiologist at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation in Washington state, projected that will happen within the next two weeks.

Dr. Ali Mokdad, an epidemiologist with the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation in Seattle, told ABC News the spread of the BA.2 variant is undoubtedly playing a role in the rise of reinfections in England.