[karlakush]

Not true. Deaths only lag cases by 5-10 days. For example, in Italy daily new cases peaked on March 21st and daily deaths peaked on March 27th.

[perl4ever]

This assumes the death rate is independent of, say, health care system capacity. Didn't they have an issue with that in Italy?

[elihu]

Doesn't that depend a great deal on testing capability? If testing is quick and widely available, then I'd expect the lag to be larger as people get diagnosed earlier.