The world has now counted 20M COVID cases and about 720K COVID-related deaths.

The US registers 5M of those cases and 163K of those deaths. Experts say the actual number of US cases is about 10x the official count. Worldwide, the estimates are less clear.

COVID-19 mortality rate based on official case counts is about 3.5%, both worldwide and in the US. The annual flu has a mortality rate of 0.1%. Mortality rates for ages 60+ are higher for both diseases.

Even if the US case count is the estimated 50M, that’s still only 14% of our population! The virus has a lot of runway left to do damage.

The first official US case was 202 days ago. We started our semi-isolation and public mask-wearing protocol 155 days ago.

Let’s assume that a vaccine will be somewhat available by the end of the year. Using current rates, another 144,000 people will then die from COVID-19 in the US. That will bring our counted COVID deaths to approximately 300,000 people.

The motorcycle event in Sturgis SD this month brings 250K people from all states together for 10 days of drinking and partying, no masks required. Then those people will return to their home states and families. You could not have designed a better infection-spreading process. IMHO, this event dooms the US to a worst case virus outcome for 2020. It’s gonna be a rough ride for the next 5+ months.