ALL INPredictions
Last updated Nov 29, 2025
Prediction
Friedberg
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Friedberg @ 00:49:02Wrong
health
In the United States, the Delta variant of SARS‑CoV‑2 will not overwhelm or "crush" the hospital system, and will not cause a massive number of fatalities, during its subsequent waves (e.g., through the main Delta wave in late 2021).
even if this delta variant is highly infectious, there are enough people and people vaccinated in the United States at this point that this Delta variant is not going to crush our hospital system. It's not going to cause massive amount of fatalitiesView on YouTube
Explanation

Friedberg argued that despite Delta’s infectiousness, existing U.S. immunity meant the Delta wave would not crush the hospital system or cause a massive number of deaths.

What actually happened in the U.S. during the Delta-dominant period (roughly July–November 2021) conflicts with both parts of that claim:

  • Deaths during the Delta wave were very large. KFF/CDC data show 604,656 cumulative U.S. COVID deaths by June 30, 2021, just before Delta took off. (healthsystemtracker.org) By August 25 that had risen to 630,868, and the tracker notes deaths climbing again as Delta spread. (healthsystemtracker.org) The U.S. then passed 700,000 deaths on October 1 and 746,000 by November 1. (en.wikipedia.org) A Washington Post analysis of the pandemic’s first two years highlights that in just September and October 2021, around the Delta peak, COVID killed more than 100,000 Americans. (washingtonpost.com) These figures are widely described by public-health and media sources as a ‘colossal tragedy’ and mark COVID surpassing the 1918 flu in U.S. deaths, which strongly contradicts the idea that Delta would not cause a ‘massive amount of fatalities’. (en.wikipedia.org)

  • Hospitals were heavily strained, with regional breakdowns. During the Delta surge, U.S. COVID hospitalizations climbed back above 100,000 in late August, with HHS data showing about 103,000 hospitalized patients at the early-September peak — levels comparable to the worst earlier surge. (cnbc.com) The Guardian reported that more than 100,000 inpatient beds were occupied by COVID patients and described this as underscoring the ‘devastating’ Delta surge. (theguardian.com) The CDC and other summaries characterize July–September 2021 as a hospital crisis period, with routine care and COVID care colliding. (en.wikipedia.org) In Idaho, for example, the health department formally activated statewide crisis standards of care in mid-September 2021 because a ‘massive increase’ in COVID hospitalizations had exhausted resources and left hospitals unable to provide normal standards of care — effectively a local system collapse. (healthandwelfare.idaho.gov)

While the national hospital system did not completely collapse everywhere at once, Delta clearly produced severe, documented hospital crises in multiple states and caused well over 100,000 U.S. deaths in just a couple of months. Under any ordinary reading, that counts as both major hospital strain and a massive number of fatalities, so the prediction did not hold up.