How long will coronavirus last in the United States? New numbers from Italy give hope for a shorter run than most experts predict.

Italy has now seen four days of lower infection rates and deaths since March 21, when the country reported 6,557 cases and 793 fatalities. It’s still early, but the quickly rising numbers have flattened and then lowered for the very first time in Italy’s fight with the disease.

If that trend continues, it would mirror infection increases and declines of the only two other countries – China and South Korea – where new cases are dramatically lower than weeks ago, with life starting to return to normal.

China and South Korea success

Many experts say the coronavirus will infect the vast majority of Americans. Gov. Gavin Newsom said 56% of Californians could get the disease and Gov. Andrew Cuomo says it could hit 80% of New Yorkers.

Yet China and South Korea reported well below 1% of their populations testing positive for the disease. Even Italy, with far worse per-capita rates than any other country, currently has 0.124% of its population with the disease.

Even more telling, both China and South Korea had similar patterns, showing rising numbers for 4-6 weeks, then a slow dropoff to the minimal numbers today.

Implications for the U.S.?

Will those patterns also apply to the United States? China is notorious for manipulating numbers, and many wondered if South Korea’s success in stopping the virus could be replicated elsewhere.

That’s why the world has been closely watching Italy’s numbers, hopeful that the same pattern would be seen. Right now, there’s encouragement for that.

The United States is estimated to be about 10 days “behind” Italy in infections. Scientists often mark the date of the 100th country infection as a start, which was February 23 for Italy and March 2 for the United States. Within the United States, however, there are different start times for different states, with Washington seeing the first influx of disease and death.

Italians hit hard

Italy leads the world in coronavirus deaths at 7,503, and currently has 74,400 cases. The sheer volume of sickness and death overwhelmed the medical facilities in the northern part of the country.

With a population of 60 million, Italy’s per-capita deaths are even grimmer with the virus killing 124 Italians per million people so far.

Spain is second-worst at 74 deaths per million. By contrast, the United States’ death rate is 2.5 per million, among the lowest rate for countries fighting coronavirus, and similar to Germany and South Korea.

The light at the end of the tunnel?

Italian officials are not touting a victory just yet, saying they fear the real number of cases could be much higher than just the tested ones being counted – up to ten times more. If Italy’s numbers continue to drop, they could also indicate when countries can hope to return people to work and get their economies moving.

Last week, Campania’s president Vincenzo De Luca was angered at Italians planning graduation parties, stating, “We will send police. With flame-throwers.”

If Italy’s new numbers hold, De Luca may not need those flame-throwers after all.

All numbers sourced from WorldoMeter which cites original sourcing for each country statistics.

Laura Falin is the senior editor for LaCorte News.