The quote is from 2020 before the vaccine. The author says, "Approximately two hundred thousand Americans had already died from COVID. The last thing the public needed was an exaggeration of the future risks, implying to some that ten times that number could still die."

Math says that 200K * 10 is 2 million. A google search says that the death count in America is creeping up on 1 million.

And now we have the vaccine and have 60+ percent of the people in America immunized.

Sounds like the original estimate isn't grossly far off.