: The estimated number of COVID-19 infected cases vs the actual number of cases in China stabilizing The number of cases in China is reportedly stabilizing due to drastic measures taken by its government as the following figure

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The estimated number of COVID-19 infected cases vs the actual number of cases in China stabilizing
The number of cases in China is reportedly stabilizing due to drastic measures taken by its government as the following figure (from [1]) shows. On the other hand, based on the value of R0, Marc Lipsitch and other experts argue that 40% - 70% (later lowered to 20% - 60% after R0 was found to be about 2.3) of adults will be infected without effective controls over the next 12-18 months, resulting in 1.5 million deaths in the U.S. based on 1% fatality rate [2-3].

Given that about 50,000 of new cases were confirmed over the past one and half months, which is about 0.0005% of China's adult population, it seems quite different from the above estimation of 20% - 60% over 12-18 months. There are two explanations I can come up with: (1) the number of confirmed cases severely underestimates the number of actual people infected, which means many asymptomatic cases and inflated fatality rate and (2) the further exponential increase of the number of infected people was prevented, since the prevention measure was effective enough. But asymptomatic cases are rare as quoted below, which weaks the effect of (1).

People infected with Covid-19 who are truly asymptomatic are rare, Van Kerkhove said. Studies in China estimate that about 1.2% of confirmed cases are asymptomatic. But Van Kerkhove said when the scientists on the WHO mission to China pressed for more detail, it became clear that most of the people who were first described as asymptomatic actually were pre-symptomatic — they’d been detected through contact tracing before their symptoms manifested. [4]

That being said, isn't 20% - 60% over the next 12-18 months unlikely given the realistically implementable measures? Or based on the course of any existing cases of infectious diseases, is it totally reasonable to assume dramatically larger-scale spreading in China over the next 12-18 months?

[1] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_pandemic
[2] twitter.com/mlipsitch/status/1228373884027592704
[3] www.linkedin.com/content-guest/article/notes-from-ucsf-expert-panel-march-10-dr-jordan-shlain-m-d-/
[4] www.statnews.com/2020/03/06/were-learning-a-lot-about-the-coronavirus-it-will-help-us-assess-risk/

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