An IFR of 0.6%, with 2/3 of the US infected (about what you'd need for herd immunity at an R0 of 3), means ~1.3 million deaths. That's well in line with the models. The distinction between CFR and IFR was not news to the experts.
> It's also lower than the 3% that was predicted that people used to justify the shutdown and closer inline with the swine flu or rotovirus.
The shutdown wasn't, and isn't, based on the fatality rate under current conditions as much as the shape of the curve of various medical resources being required (total hospital beds, ICU beds, ventilators, PPE for healthcare workers, etc.), the anticipated speed of being able to bring more online, and the likely impact of exceeding available supply on death rates and other health outcomes, both for COVID-19 victims and patients with other health conditions. (A potential problem which was significantly realized in Italy, where things like ventilators were for a while allocated based on other factors besides medical need, since the number with need exceeded the supply.)
It's important to remember that the fatality rate of a disease isn't a constant, and changes to conditions (like, we can no longer provide ventilators to everyone who needs one) can change that rate.
The shutdown addresses more qualitative aspects of the situation. Even if flattening the curve doesn't reduce the area under the curve, it still avoids a potential large numbers of otherwise avoidable deaths because fewer people have it at once, keeping hospitals under capacity, and more people will get it later when we know better how to treat it.
And the earliest predictions have to be the least accurate, because they're based on the least amount of data. But early on is when you need to act.
I mean there were articles like this all of march. I'm not saying the WHO or CDC might of said something different but lets acknowledge there were articles proclaiming a 3% death rate.
