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But that forecast toll fueled by an estimated 15,000 to 54,000 new infections spread during crowded chants, clashes and arrests is relatively small compared to the overall U.S. epidemic, representing about a 3% to 6% increase above the nations total new daily infections, reports Trevor Bedford, a computational biologist at Seattles Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Institute who studies the spread of viruses.

The Bedford analysis offers two different scenarios for crowd counts of 600,000 people, based on news sources and Wikipedia estimates of daily protests in more than 400 cities.

One estimate is low, assuming a fatality rate of 0.5% and a transmission rate of 0.9 one person with the disease infects, on average, 0.9 others. This scenario would lead to 1,500 new infections each day and 15,000 secondary infections among protestors friends and family, eventually causing 50 to 75 deaths. The higher estimate assumes a transmission rate of 0.95 and a fatality rate of 1%. This scenario would lead to 3,000 new infections a day and a total of 54,000 secondary infections, causing 500-540 deaths.

New COVID-19 cases (blue) acquired at protests or elsewhere can lead to successive rounds of infections (orange) in others. Because the epidemic is not yet controlled, experts expect a cascade of infections from one infection in the community. (Source: Trevor Bedford.)

If the virus is present in 0.5% of the general population, an estimated 3,000 protesters could have active infections and pose a risk to others. The U.S. has 1.5 million current infections, and 20,000 new cases are confirmed every day, on average.