If the USA pulls out of this with only 100k dead it is a victory, you won.
1 million dead is a draw.
10 million dead before Christmas is what happens if you lose this war.
This isn't hyperbole. This is people who professionally model epidemics doing their work in the US population.
~1 million dead is if you (a) don't develop better treatment, (b) never have hospitals overrun because you scale your capacity, (c) reach herd immunity over the year, and (d) don't get lucky with a miracle (vaccine faster than anyone thinks possible, mild strain that spreads faster and grants immunity, treatment that stops it in its tracks).
~10 million dead is what happens if you hospitals can't keep up.
And for every dead person, many people with lifetime lung capacity damage.
Deaths grow at 33% daily without social distancing. 1.33^20 is 300; 1.33^30 is 5000.
The death curve changes about
20 days after you change behavior.
So an area with 10 deaths and no social distancing has already "booked"
3000 deaths, give or take.
Look at when Italy started serious measures. They started on 21 February 2020 with 21 deaths.
16 days later, on Sunday 8 March 2020 they locked down the North with 366 deaths. (366/21)^(1/16) is 1.19, or 19% growth rate per day.
Then on the 9th the entire country.
From the 8th to the 15th deaths rose to 1809, or 25.6% per day.
From the 15th to the 22nd deaths rose to 5476, or 17.1% per day.
Now the problem is by this point, too many people where dying for them to get to hospital and be tested before they die.
As the official death toll from Italy's coronavirus outbreak passes 2,500, a silent surge in fatalities in nursing homes, where dozens of patients a day are dying untested for the virus, suggests the real total may be higher.
www.reuters.com
One town has 164 deaths. 31 attributed to coronovirus. 56 died in the same period last year. So 77
excess deaths which could be Covid-19 deaths who couldn't get to hospital before they died, or 350% of the actual official deaths.
It is plausible that Italy is undercounting their deaths by 3x, and that Covid-19 has already killed 25,000 despite a national lockdown. So possibly there are 2000 people per day dying, from 20 total just over a month ago.
At this point we are approaching 20 days after national lockdown. This should drop the growth rate closer to 10%, so 2000 per day. Then you hope to strangle the virus and bend the curve down, but still you end up with 1000s of deaths per day.
At 60 million people, if 1% die that is 600,000. You can keep up 3000 deaths/day for 200 days and not run out of fuel for this fire. And Italy death rates are higher due to health care system overload.
#stayhome
You be asymptomatic. Then you just spread it to people who die.
You could get a mild case, and have your lung capacity reduced by 10% for the rest of your life.
You could get a moderate case, and be hospitalized in overloaded facilities.
You could even get a serious case that you could live through with treatement. And you get treatment, because you are young and healthy. But every person who gets treatment is soon going to be someone else who they let die.
There are lots of "reasons" people make up why Italy is different than the USA or wherever it is you are living. But we are seeing steeper death curves in the USA than we saw in Italy in uncontrolled epidemics -- 33% instead of 20% deaths/day.
