AZAR: The coronavirus results for the US could've been vastly worse

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

11. I suspect that when this all plays out we will end up with around 4% of the deaths.

For one thing, we're still at the very beginning, which means that even if each and every country were honestly reporting numbers, there's still a long way to go before this has played out. But a lot of countries are probably not reporting honestly, or their pandemics have just gotten started.

Also, deaths per million of population is a better number in my opinion than raw numbers. About twelve others have higher numbers in that category than we do.

Countries that have done an excellent job of keeping infections and deaths down tend to be smaller, relatively homogenous countries. Many of them are island nations. Others, like China, are totalitarian dictatorships and could completely shut down parts of the country without silly protests.

Meanwhile, I suspect that in the end India may well lose several million people, and Brazil several hundred thousand.

This is a five act Shakesperean play. We're in about scene two of Act I.