I think the 1.6 million would be a good figure for if the virus "runs it's course" and infects 70%, based on early, more reliable data from China that with improved medical detection and treatment, the death rate was 0.7%.
Our death rate being so high is indicative as you noted of severe under-reporting.
I suspect that the number of deaths per day will slowly climb towards 3 and then 4k per day and take a long time to shrink down below 1k per day. Society will just start to tolerate the level of deaths. I mean, we're at 2k per day and over 30% are clamoring for reopening already. There is a cost to not opening, I know that, lots of people ejected onto the street, etc. It's a real problem.
The whole point of the abrupt stop was to keep from overwhelming the medical system. Check. Now it will be a matter of living and dying with a new #1 cause of death in the US for another month, or two, or three.
When I calculated this a few weeks ago from one source, assuming no gaff on my part, I had heart disease #1 at 1773/day, cancer at 1641/day. The last 19 days have an 'official' average of 2283/day for COVID-19.
Some of those people no doubt would have died anyway within a year or two. But many were taken who were far younger. It translates into a further lowering of our life expectancy among OECD nations (we were just below Slovania in 2008). |
