A man wearing a face mask walks past a restaurant in Washington, D.C., the United States, Aug 14, 2020. A new ensemble forecast published by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has projected up to 200,000 total COVID-19 deaths in the US by Sep 5.Photo:Xinhua

A new ensemble forecast published by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has projected up to 200,000 total COVID-19 deaths in the United States by Sept. 5.

The projection published Thursday forecast that 4,200 to 10,600 new COVID-19 deaths will be reported during the week ending Sept. 5 and that 180,000 to 200,000 total COVID-19 deaths will be reported by that date.

"State- and territory-level ensemble forecasts predict that the number of reported new deaths per week may increase over the next four weeks in Colorado and may decrease in Arizona, the Northern Mariana Islands, Vermont, and Wyoming," the CDC said on its forecasting website.

If the United States allowed the coronavirus to spread unchecked in an attempt to try to achieve so-called herd immunity, the "death toll would be enormous," Anthony Fauci, director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, warned on Thursday.

"If everyone contracted it, even with the relatively high percentage of people without symptoms ... a lot of people are going to die," Fauci said during a live Instagram session.

"Testing continues to fall, especially in the South, one of the areas where the country needs it the most. Cases, too, are falling, which remains hard to interpret, given the testing decline -- but fewer people are now in the hospital with COVID-19 than last week," said a new report of The COVID Tracking Project.

This is the second week in a row that hospitalizations seem to have dropped, which suggests that infections may be declining independently of testing reductions, according to the report.

The number of COVID-19 cases in the United States topped 5.29 million as of Friday afternoon with more than 168,100 deaths, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

Shoppers wearing face masks leave a Costco wholesale store in Washington, D.C., the United States, Aug. 14, 2020. A new ensemble forecast published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has projected up to 200,000 total COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. by Sept. 5. Photo:Xinhua

 

People wearing face masks walk on a street in Washington, D.C., the United States, Aug. 14, 2020. A new ensemble forecast published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has projected up to 200,000 total COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. by Sept. 5.Photo:Xinhua

 

Shoppers wearing face masks visit a Costco wholesale store in Washington, D.C., the United States, Aug. 14, 2020. A new ensemble forecast published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has projected up to 200,000 total COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. by Sept. 5.Photo:Xinhua

 

People wearing face masks walk on a street in Washington, D.C., the United States, Aug. 14, 2020. A new ensemble forecast published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has projected up to 200,000 total COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. by Sept. 5.Photo:Xinhua