Well, some research shows...
More than a dozen researchers predicted how the US's coronavirus outbreak will end. They estimated nearly 200,000 people could die by the end of the year....The most extreme model predicted that up to 1.2 million people could die. By comparison, a typical flu season in the US kills between 11,000 and 95,000 people, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. .. But a model from the Imperial College of London estimated up to 2.2 million people could die if no actions were taken to stop transmission in the US...The disease modeler who conducted the survey, Thomas McAndrew, said he didn't ask researchers to account for social-distancing measures in their models, but researchers still had the option...But the Imperial College researchers also said three months of social-distancing measures — such as household quarantines, closures of all schools and universities, and the isolation of infected patients — could cut the number of US deaths in half. Even if all patients were able to receive treatment at hospitals, however, the researchers predicted that about 1.2 million people in the US could die. https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-deaths-us-predictions-social-distancing-2020-3
https://www.hpnonline.com/infection-prevention/screening-surveillance/article/21130206/covid19-predicted-to-infect-81-of-us-population-cause-22-million-deaths-in-us
White House Projects 100,000 to 240,000 U.S. Coronavirus Deaths ‘This could be a hell of a bad two weeks,’ Trump warns, urging Americans to continue social-distancing measures https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-coronavirus-count-excluded-infected-people-with-no-symptoms-11585650226
With Strict Social Distancing, U.S. COVID-19 Deaths May Total 100,000 March 30, 20207:16 AM ET Heard on Morning Edition https://www.npr.org/2020/03/30/823764157/with-strict-social-distancing-u-s-covid-19-deaths-may-total-100-000
The Imperial College model famously predicted 2.2 million deaths in the U.S. in a do-nothing scenario, and more than 1 million even if quite aggressive mitigation measures were adopted. As of April 2, a survey of public-health officials summarized by FiveThirtyEight found a median projection of around 263,000 deaths. The new IHME model suggests an ultimate toll less than one-quarter that number, about one-20th the figure projected in the Imperial College’s “mitigation” scenario, and less than one-30th what was projected in their “do nothing” scenario. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/04/best-case-scenario-for-coronavirus.html
Fauci lowers U.S. coronavirus death forecast to 60,000, says social distancing is working Dan Keemahill, Erin Mansfield, Dinah Voyles Pulver, Nicholas Wu, Dian Zhang, USA TODAY 6 days ago https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/fauci-lowers-us-coronavirus-death-forecast-to-60000-says-social-distancing-is-working/ar-BB12oHEl
The Coronavirus Outbreak Could Spread To Millions In The US. We Don’t Have Nearly Enough Hospital Beds If It Does. Models suggest that the US could be headed toward 150,000 COVID-19 cases by the end of the month, with only 45,000 ICU hospital beds nationwide. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/danvergano/coronavirus-hospital-beds-icu
These Places Could Run Out of Hospital Beds as Coronavirus Spreads. March 17, 2020
In 40 percent of markets around the country, hospitals would not be able to make enough room for all the patients who became ill with Covid-19, even if they could empty their beds of other patients. That statistic assumes that 40 percent of adults become infected with the virus over 12 months, a scenario described as “moderate” by the team behind the calculations. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/17/upshot/hospital-bed-shortages-coronavirus.html
One of the most striking developments over the past two weeks is how quickly the estimates of death and hospitalizations from COVID-19 are being reduced....National Review's Andrew McCarthy notes that IHME has been revising its estimates for hospital beds (including ones in intensive care units [ICU]) and ventilators as well: On April 8, IHME reduced the total number of hospital beds it had predicted would be needed nationally by a remarkable 166,890—down to 95,202 from the 262,092 it had predicted less than a week earlier (i.e., it was nearly two-thirds off). The ICU projection over that same week was cut in half: to 19,816 on April 8, down from 39,727 on April 2. The projected need for ventilators also fell by nearly half, to 16,845 from 31,782....On March 30, University of Washington researchers projected that California would need 4,800 beds on April 3. In fact, the state needed 2,200. The same model projected that Louisiana would need 6,400; in fact, it used only 1,700. Even New York, the most stressed system in the country, used only 15,000 beds against a projection of 58,000. https://reason.com/2020/04/10/good-news-coronavirus-death-estimates-keep-shrinking/
Is California winning the battle against coronavirus spread? April 14, 2020 ...Gov. Gavin Newsom’s health agency provided The Bee with perhaps the most telling numbers yet that the state is staving off the surge of serious cases that overwhelmed hospitals in New York, China, Italy and Spain....If those numbers remain low, they will be far under projections from Newsom’s office that indicated the state would need to add more than 50,000 hospital beds to accommodate a surge in COVID-19 patients. So far in California, there have been more than 22,000 confirmed cases and 687 deaths, according to the latest data from the California Department of Public Health. https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/health-and-medicine/article241973806.html