Thread by @willchamberlain

Here's my thesis for what happened over the past month:

1) We were on track for a severe, Italy-style outbreak in a number of places around the country

2) Then, President Trump and state governors started taking it very seriously, and Americans changed their behavior

3) That wasn't soon enough to prevent a serious outbreak in New York City, but it was enough to prevent outbreaks elsewhere

4) The models were wrong due to some combination of overestimating contagiousness/lethality and underestimating the effectiveness of social distancing

5) Overall what we've seen is a heroic effort by the American people that's likely saved at tens of thousands of lives, and perhaps hundreds of thousands of lives

6) Given the way things are going we should be in a position to ease social distancing recommendations around May 1

7) That said - in the last three weeks roughly 17,000 Americans have died of Coronavirus, despite the most aggressive peacetime lockdowns in our nation's history (and that number keeps climbing)

8) The alarmists were right and the flu crew was wrong