Social distancing withdraws fresh victims. The looming question is how many latent spreaders remain to restart the infection process once "normal" interaction resumes.
Possibility of infection will continue until "heard immunity" kicks in. And perhaps even after that, if this particular virus mutates to different strains (which I believe it is capable of doing), and if new strains are able to circumvent previous immunity, like the seasonal flu.
In terms of actual CV mortality drop-off - either here or in Italy - this would translate into (at least) three possible explanations:
1. Social distancing restricted/eliminated a potential population for the virus to (exponentially) grow into;
2. Herd/youth immunity is beginning to develop - among certain sectors - which serves to decouple fatals from actual gross numbers of infected;
3. Actual population limits have been reached ie there's no more there there for the virus to (exponentially) grow.
Case #1 may be true for the US - starting with the jump start on Friday the 13th - but I think Italy may have acted too late, and might actually be experiencing #3.
Case #2 is obviously the most favorable outcome. It's the one that I believe Trump is attempting in order to "thread the needle". That is, modified/amended emergency 15 day order that maintains/alters a few things:
- keeps children from large groups aka school
- allows the main work force of adults to get back in the saddle again
- keeps older and at risk in isolation
If it turns out #2 is not valid, and that we only had a close call because of imposing #1, then that will be obviously closely monitored.
When this event is over, the analysts will be able to determine if the US actually experienced #3 (ie CV had been present since Dec 2019), but due to a number of factors we didn't have a similar experience as Italy. (Age, life styles, living conditions, health system, etc.)
Well under 1% of the population has been exposed. Well, that was true until recently and I think it still is. Of the exposed people, the weak die off fast and the rest who get a serious case - or even just a mild case, sometimes - linger a while, and some of them also die.
Deaths will continue, like in South Korea, for weeks or even months even if there is not a single additional exposure.
And, yes, treatment might invalidate that statement in large part, but even the HCQ+AZT treatment won’t save you if you’re too far gone.