Raising My Estimate of the Deaths from COVID-19

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I am raising my highly scientific estimate of American deaths from the coronavirus up from 200K to 288K. The world class logic (dry sarcasm, sorry) that I use for this estimate is as follows.

The WaPo death count for Americans as of this morning is 96,000. But we know the number is low because not all deaths from COVID-19 are officially marked as such for a number of different reasons, some benign, some less so. The estimates for an adjustment factor range from 1.25 to 2.0 although I have seen higher. Lets take a relatively conservative 1.5. That means that we are currently at 144,000 deaths. It seems likely to me, even optimistic, that we can expect an equal number of deaths going forward as we try to manage this thing although of course the future is uncertain. On the one hand we are getting better at testing, and know a lot more about how to treat the disease (although still not doing so great there, we are certainly getting better). On the other hand, it is likely that social distancing really did help (with regional variation) but different areas are opening up now and it would be a miracle if this did not cause local hot spots. A couple of good church meetings and political rallies can infect hundreds of people who will then spread the virus at the very least to their immediate family. The rallies in Michigan of the guys with guns and calling for people to resist the Mark of the Beast came from all over the country, I read, and we know some of them were infected. A vaccine in the next 12 months would be amazing, and I think has a low probability of happening, although it is certainly possible if we get lucky.

So it seems fair to me that if we had some N deaths getting to this point, and since we are nowhere near done, and at best we are at some sort of peak, then it is likely that we would have at least that many taking the curve down assuming that the curve is symmetric, which it may not be. Thus 2 * 144,000 = 288,000. At least.

I have been pretty good at predicting this so far, through my flakey back of the envelope estimates but hopefully I am wrong this time and it will just go away as the Great Leader who Knows All Things predicted.