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> deaths (the more important number)

One of the more interesting things I've been reading is that we shouldn't think about this as a total binary. There are reports that survivors exhibit have long-term effects, such as neurological issues [1] and lung damage.

So yes, it's good that fewer people are dying! But that doesn't mean everything is simply great now.

[1]: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200622-the-long-term-ef...

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My guess is that the deaths probably would maintain roughly the same rate for the true number of infected, which is a number we do not know because of asymptomatic cases. That numbers of people testing positive is going up doesn’t mean that the overall rate is going up given we do not know the true infected rate, but number of deaths provides a reasonable proxy for that.

We understand the disease a bit better, and have better treatments (eg dexamethasone) than we had in March, so I'd expect the true fatality to go down somewhat. (read carefully, this is not in contradiction with the CDC raising their estimate of the IFR). Better treatments are of no use if hospitals are overwhelmed, unfortunately.

The percentage of tests with a positive result has increased, which indicates an increase in the true number of cases.

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/testing/individual-states

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