[magnus]

Finally, I know this could change and infection trends could pick up again but .... 800K?  I'd like to hear the argument for how we get there from here (44K and death rate dropping).

The quote by DenverCard leaves out a little context.  Michael Osterholm was answering the question:

if I were at the local café, how could I explain what's going on to a group of people sitting at that table? I'd say to them, let's just take the following simple numbers.

So I took the answer to address...if at the beginning of this outbreak, how would you get people to understand what's going on, what would you tell them.  In that light, there's no need to mention social distancing or any other mitigating factors as you want them to understand the probably worst case scenario.

[magnus]

Finally, I know this could change and infection trends could pick up again but .... 800K?  I'd like to hear the argument for how we get there from here (44K and death rate dropping).

The quote by DenverCard leaves out a little context.  Michael Osterholm was answering the question:

if I were at the local café, how could I explain what's going on to a group of people sitting at that table? I'd say to them, let's just take the following simple numbers.

So I took the answer to address...if at the beginning of this outbreak, how would you get people to understand what's going on, what would you tell them.  In that light, there's no need to mention social distancing or any other mitigating factors as you want them to understand the probably worst case scenario.