SEATTLE, United States (AP) — A widely cited model predicts worsening outbreaks in the Northern Hemisphere will lead to 1.9 million more novel coronavirus deaths in 2020 unless governments act.

Mask mandates and social distancing could save hundreds of thousands of lives, but there is “a tremendous amount of COVID fatigue” among the world’s government leaders because of economic downturns, said Dr Christopher Murray of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington.

Most of the world’s population lives in the Northern Hemisphere. Respiratory illnesses tend to peak in winter months, a seasonal effect expected to hold true for COVID-19, Murray said yesterday. Disease models are based on assumptions about human behaviour, so there is a large amount of uncertainty.

Even if a vaccine proves safe and effective, there won’t be time to distribute enough vaccine to change the bleak forecast, Murray said.

The IHME model projects the wave will peak globally in mid-December at 30,000 deaths per day and in the United States in early December at about 2,900 deaths per day. India, the United States, Brazil, Mexico and Japan will lead the world in total deaths by January 1, according to the forecast.

In the meantime, head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said the UN health agency will not recommend any COVID-19 vaccine before it is proved safe and effective, even as Russia and China have started using their experimental vaccines, before large studies have finished and other countries have proposed streamlining authorisation procedures.

At a press briefing yesterday, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said vaccines have been used successfully for decades, and credited them with eradicating smallpox and bringing polio to the brink of being eliminated.

“I would like to assure the public that WHO will not endorse a vaccine that’s not effective and safe,” Tedros said. He said newly developed Ebola vaccines helped end the recent Ebola outbreak in Congo, noting that stopping the deadly virus was complicated by the dozens of armed groups operating in the region.

Tedros appealed to people opposed to vaccination to do their own research.

“The anti-vaccine movement, they can build narratives to fight against vaccines but the track record of vaccines tells its own story and people should not be confused,” he said, appealing to parents in particular. “They can have a look for themselves on how the world actually used vaccines to reduce under-5 mortality to save children.”

Last week, Britain said it was preparing to revise its laws so that any effective novel coronavirus vaccine could be used before it was fully licensed.

Russia became the first country in the world to approve a COVID-19 vaccine in August, after licensing a shot that had only been tested in several dozen people.

Russian scientists yesterday published data from early studies suggesting their vaccine was safe and prompted an antibody response, but the results were limited and experts said the shot had not yet proven to work. The Russian vaccine, known as Sputnik V, is now being tested in about 40,000 people and is being offered “in parallel” to key workers like doctors and teachers. Among those who have received it are one of President Vladimir Putin’s daughters and Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu.

China has reportedly begun inoculating some high-risk groups with one of its experimental novel coronavirus vaccines while the large studies to prove its efficacy and safety are ongoing. In July, the head of China’s Centre for Disease Control and Prevention announced that he had received the shot, although he did not specify whether that was done as part of a clinical trial.