On April 21, 2,874 people officially died of Covid-19, making it the worst day so far for the pandemic. According to a study from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, we’re going to be seeing 3,000 people a day dying by mid-May. The report also predicts a rate of new infections of 200,000 per day, or almost a million and a half new cases per week.

This compares unfavorably to a different study conducted by the White House:

White House officials have been relying on other models to make decisions on reopening, including the IHME model and a “cubic model” prepared by the Council of Economic Advisers, led by Trump adviser Kevin Hassett.

People with knowledge of the “cubic model” say it currently shows deaths dropping precipitously in May — and essentially going to zero by May 15.

I guess we won’t have to wait too long to discover which estimate is more accurate. The CDC estimate leaked to the Washington Post and it’s not clear what assumptions it is using. The Trump administration completely disavows it and says the coronavirus task force hasn’t even seen it.

They prefer the analysis from Kevin Hassett, a man who Jonathan Chait points out is most famous for predicting in 1999 that the Dow Jones Index would soon hit 36,000. Hassett is not an epidemiologist; he’s an apostle of supply-side economics in the mold of Stephen Moore and Art Laffer. Relying on his model of the viral spread should be both a criminal and an impeachable offense. Impeachable, because “what the fuck?” Criminal because it amounts to depraved indifference to mass loss of life.