Without effective social distancing 1-2 M in the US could die due to healthcare system being overwhelmed and not being able to care for the critically ill, coronavirus-related or anything else.

With New York-style effective social distancing 100K - 240K could die across the country based on the actual data that has been coming in. They are the hot spot and are one of the states farthest along in their progression with the disease. The task force is preparing the country for this. They don't want pandemonium if this scenario plays out, even if there are other plausible scenarios.

Most places in the US are not New York. Some are likely doing social distancing better (not blaming NY here, lots of factors and unknowns at play). California and Washington have different numbers and trends than NY. Also, NY metro area is a very densely populated area, so more spread of the disease makes sense there. The rest of the country may see a different effect, and hopefully it does.

We are dealing with leaders trying to manage expectations and behavior of a very large (300M) group of people. So sometimes we hear optimism. Sometimes we hear them prepare people for worse case scenarios. Mistakes can, and probably have been made. No one has ever experienced anything like this in the last century. I believe our leaders have better information from world-class experts than I do. The country as a whole needs to come together and follow their guidance to best get through this. We don't need everyone doing their own thing.

I read an article that said the NY morgues are overflowing and the hospitals are having to load bodies into refrigerated trucks. We hear about normal, healthy, not old people dying. We see posts from many healthcare providers about the war zone-type environment they are in without proper protection, some dying as a result of the infection they get along the way.

When I hear it all, I just try be smart, keep from getting the disease and keep from spreading it, in case I have it but haven't shown symptoms yet. Flattening the curve makes sense to me, based on not overrunning the healthcare system. I really do think some pain for the next 3-4 weeks then reassess is the best approach anyone knows to do right now.