The best model I have seen actually uses the death numbers to feed back into things like R0 and the real number of infected. We know the death numbers for many days, and we can make the assumption the death rate is fairly constant. The most important thing we get out of the models is that R0 (the number of people an average victim infects) is partly set by the transmissability of the virus but also by our behavior. We can knock that down to zero if we actually decide to all do that. But that is not usual human behavior and especially not American behavior. There are still people claiming this is a hoax, a Democratic plot against Trump, quarantines a violation of our constitutional rights, etc.

I was please to read that a prominent preacher in Virginia who claimed the virus was a hoax was one of the first people in the state to die from it. Very fitting. Sometimes your greatest purpose in life is to serve as a bad example for others.