A few predictions:
First, I’m done talking about number of infections. Is is partly because we have no idea. The official tally says 1.3 million, but that’s an underestimate by a factor of 3 to 10x. That number starts to mean something once it hits around 100 million and the virus starts to run into problems finding new hosts. So, we’re not there yet, plenty of kindling to burn still. More interesting is total deaths.
We’re at 78,000 as of the end of the first week in May. Deaths have been steady at 13-15K a week for the last three weeks, and I see that continuing, as NY’s numbers fade but other states get worse. I think we’ll cross 100K dead by before Memorial Day. We should go into June around 110,000.
Into the realm of speculation. I see the environmental factors and the “opening of the economy” counter-balancing each other, so I think we’ll keep this death rate up through June. Put us around 150K by the 4th of July.
I bet we start to see a drop in death rates thereafter as we develop more effective treatment regiments, be they in the form of prophylaxis or treatments of those already infected. I think we’ll see a drop to half the death rate for the months of July, August, and September. In that case, we’d get into October between 200 and 250K. I think that we’ll see the first small scale roll outs of a vaccine by then. That said, with schools in session in most of the country in September, we’ll have a burst of cases in October, where we’ll bump the death rate back up, but at a lower fatality rate as our treatments improve. I see us adding 50K deaths a month through December, so that will put us around 400k total by the end of 2020. Beyond that will depend on what we’ve learned about antibodies and herd immunity and vaccines. I see that 400K as neither optimistic or pessimistic. The absolute worst case, in my mind, is around a million dead by 15 months from now. I hope that’s not possible.
All of these numbers are way worse than I would have predicted two months ago. We’ve done a horrible job.
As for other things, in no particular order…I think that…
…Trump embraces absentee and mail-in ballots for at-risk populations, as defined by voters over the age of 60. They are reliable Trump voters.
…many members of the cabinet already have access to the trial vaccine and that they will not get sick. I could be proved wrong in a matter of days on this one.
…the CDC becomes an unreliable source of death tallies and a massive misinformation campaign attempts to slow roll past numbers. They’ll claim you can’t trust the numbers, and will say that the true numbers are far less, but will have no evidence or alternative tallies. The media will continue to maintain accurate numbers, though some states will keep their tallies under strict control. Statisticians will note the excess deaths, however.
…unemployment will steady at around 15% and will remain their for the rest of the year. Consumer confidence will be in the toilet, no one will buy anything, attendance at sporting events will be either not allowed or very poor, and we’ll all be a bunch of ridiculous germophobes in a few months.
…the conspiracy theories will get worse and worse, and those who believe in them will be disproportionately infected and killed.
…it will be a bad hurricane season and Florida and/or Louisiana and/or Texas will be impacted. It will cause a spike in cases and deaths locally.
…the coronavirus will mutate in a way that makes it more contagious and less lethal (again).
…we’ll be out from under this cloud of infection by the start of the school year 2021.
…we’ll be getting SARS-CoV-2 vaccines alongside our flu shots until someone makes a discovery that eliminates the need for either in 10-20 years. The surge of research and development (in an effort to prevent the economy from once again losing 10s of trillions of dollars) will grow long term results. Unless the MAGAs start killing scientists. Which isn’t outside the realm of possibility.
…the Third World will catch up with the United States in the coming months, with major outbreaks in tropical South and Central America (starting in Brazil, whose president is even stupider than ours), Africa, and South Asia. Numbers will be difficult to measure.
…the economy, starvation, and the like will overtake the virus as the principle problem in the world. Some will blame those who overreacted to the virus (as many many die), but in reality, other scenarios were just as bad, with more dead people.
Words 
Wow why so cheery?
Death is inevitable, virus or not. Everything dies, some creatures and some people sooner rather than later. I think that the challenge of life, and it is a challenge, that everything is born into, is to find a way to avoid death by any reason other than just plain old age.
So here’s what I have found with respect to avoiding death by virus.
Since covid and most viruses “wakeup” and seek out cells to invade in acidic environments, like our blood, we may be able to “keep the beast sleeping” if we change our internal PH just a little. So eat foods that are more alkaline, eat less acidic foods and rinse your nose and throat with a salt solution as chlorine ions are deadly, especially to viruses. Keeping most of the viruses that invaded you with that last breath asleep will give your immune system a better chance to knock out those hearty virus invaders from taking hold. The salt up your nose and in your throat will kill untold numbers more.
I didn’t make any of this up. If you are interested in possible ways to treat a virus, research “doctors from Philadelphia who treated flu patients successfully in 1918.”
One prescribed a regimen of a mixture of arm and hammer baking soda and water, 4x first day 3xsecond 2x3rd and once per day until symptoms are gone.
However this was prescribed to people with symptoms. The idea then was to change your PH to make infection more difficult and thereby give your immune system the ability to “swat the mosquito” rather then run from the swarm.
But for the here and now I’m just following two personal edicts.
Avoid people and keep those who come near you at least 10 feet away while staying upwind.
Avoid touching any spot that someone else may have touched.
And finally stay sane by exercising (walk or hike) in the woods where everything is the same as it has been for centuries.
The numbers will be what they will be.
I’ve stopped checking as it is very clear that the current political status quo has no plan or intention to fight this and protect people at all costs because it just doesn’t have an idea of how or the will to find out regardless of the cost.
And for far too many, opening up the economy is a chance that they have to take as death by virus, starvation, suicide, and bankruptcy are the current options and the virus odds seems to be the best for them.
Due to the lack of leadership, We have descended into an existence of state, every county and every person for themselves.
The more you know the longer you will survive.
Stay informed and spread the GOOD WORD.
Ju
Just wanted to check back and see how your numbers were tracking now that 4th of July is upon us.
Pretty darn close, sport, not that you’ll get any particular satisfaction from it.