Most scientists now believe that, even with the vaccines, the SARS-CoV-2 virus will continue to circulate throughout the globe for many years to come. The new Delta variant has prompted new alarm and triggered again calls for indoor masking and social distancing. Anecdotally, many people are disgruntled by these developments, because they want life to truly get back to normal, the way it was back in 2019.

In order for life to return to complete normality by the end of the decade, there must be a presumption that COVID-19 is no longer a significant threat, and in any case will not get substantially worse if restrictions are lifted. One way of measuring this presumption is to predict how many deaths there will be of COVID-19 on average during the years to come.

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