When will the daily deaths decline in the U.S?

The answer lies in asking the right questions which might lead to a more informed conclusion.

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So this is a very tricky question and at this point, the answer is up in the air. I'm interested to hear everyone else's predictions and why. Instead of giving an answer, I will try to explain how I might go about trying to answer the question. Which factors would I consider carefully in making such a prediction?

It is simply impossible to make fair comparisons with Italy's experience, or North Korea's, Germany's or Spain's. All we can do (or at least all I can do with my limited resources and limited mental capacity) is to try to learn why things happened as they did in those other countries and factor in our differences with those countries when drawing comparisons.

America is vast and varied

But America is, in many ways, made up of lots of countries―some big, some small―each with their own distinct micro-communities within them. And each of those communities, each of the states, are unfolding their own individual story of the epidemic. So although what is happening in Detroit has similarities to New York, there are many incalculable differences. Florida is full of really old people. Detroit is one of America's most obese cities. Many major American cities have vast swaths of ghetto where a kind of third-world poverty grinds. The west coast has huge tent cities of homeless which take to the streets and mingle with the affluent during the day. Rural communities in the Midwest are tight-knit but also independent. Some states have competent leadership, others are run by demagogic, partisan nitwits (like Michigan).

So, when we look at each unique story-within-the-story, we see how complex the whole is. Adding complication is the likelihood that many places have not yet even begun their introductory chapter. We just have no idea where a new outbreak may explode onto the historical scene.

Are the measures actually working?

We also don't quite yet know what the depressive effect of our social distancing has been, or how much our sheltering in place will delay the development of the herd immunity that is so necessary to put a genuine end to this epidemic. Nor do we know how much the rise in seasonal temperatures will have on the spread. The stories coming out of the warmer South are not encouraging. We can barely predict the weather accurately, so how can we predict what effect the weather will have on the contagion? We know only that summer is coming sure as night follows day.

How many different narratives might just irrupt into all the other stories? What if we have a sudden crisis because all our nurses contract the disease and many of them become sick and unable to help? What if all our grocery workers acquire it and become carriers who then pass it along to all their customers and suddenly there's an explosion in the number of cases everywhere?

Inconsistent and conflicting data adds to the mystery

Another thing that makes me keep my powder dry before taking a hipshot prediction is the conflicting reports about, not just the age of the people who are dying, but the ages of people who are getting sick. If younger people are getting sick and needing hospitalisation, but not dying, then the matter of medical capacity raises its gorgon's head. If we exceed our medical capacity, the death count likely skyrockets.

Some places have greater capacity (and quality of care) than others. But it also seems that some states are stockpiling supplies and ventilators and keeping the states in need from using them. The conflicting interests in this is hard to understand but, ironically, understandable. We all think it's okay for our own state to prudently prepare, but if we're in a state which didn't prepare properly we feel outraged that the ant won't share their stock with us grasshoppers. The whole ventilator story is itself rather complicated and complex, with lots of finger-pointing and teeth-gnashing, and we are only now beginning to be told the truth of it.

Finally, although assuredly I've not exhausted the list of main factors, we are still unsure about possible effective treatments and how soon they might become widely available. Some places are already reporting that they are running low on even widely available medications like acetaminophen. Furthermore, we don't know how many people who beat it become immune to it, nor how many are susceptible to getting it again.

So much remains in flux and shrouded in ominous mystery. America's story―a vast collection of interrelated but different stories each at various points along the timeline―is still very much in its early chapters. The light at the end of the tunnel might be just around the bend, but there may no bends in the track at all, and that light might just be too far off to see.