tl;dr; About 1% overall.
Perhaps not a hugely useful measure given how radically differently it affects different age cohorts, but if we do flatten the curve (i.e. don’t overwhelm our health system) but don’t get a vaccine before full infection, I guess the “good news” is that our losses should top out around 300,000 in the US. Whee! Hey, 1/5 of the way there already! Or a lot closer, if we count excess mortality. In three months. If the curve stays flat (i.e. infections per day stay steady from here on out) then we’ll be at full infection in another year, while the vaccine might be ready in 18 months.
Thanks @tekna2007, I didn’t math so good.
One percent of 300 million would of course be 3 million. So if we kept flat we might only lose 360,000 people before the a vaccine is developed. Victory! Open all the things! Sigh.
