I'm not understanding the projected death numbers.
There were like 1150 on April 2, and it seems to be going up roughly 10% each day. Supposedly projections show deaths per day peaking on April 15, at about 2k.
Okay, let's go with that.
This means we're looking at around 45,000 deaths for the month of April, and close to 50,000 deaths total by April 30.
Sooo... how exactly are we going to stay at 100,000 deaths total for the whole shebang? Even the 240k "upper" estimate seems low, because it's not taking into account the lingering cases which will likely keep occurring even after the worst is long past -- at least until we see a vaccine in 2021.
300k deaths is probably a more realistic number, barring a breakthrough in medication to treat it or an early arrival of an effective vaccine.
California isn't doing that badly. 242 deaths, despite having 12% of the US population -- 40 million people in the state total. An unforeseen saving factor might be the long-criticized weak public transportation in the state. New York is having a lot of its problems because of the NYC subway and other common public transportation which wasn't shut down until it was too late.
South Dakota and Wyoming are the only two US states without COVID-19 deaths thus far.