This is why I'm optimistic for a much more "normal" life by spring, 2021 due to a significant decrease in "deaths from COVID".
1) Immunity to COVID appears persistent and a lot of people already had (20%?) and many more will catch it in the next few months.
2) With a virus such as COVID where much of the transmission is driven by "super spreading" events, those that get it early tend to have a higher "individual R0" and that drives down R0 for the remaining population --> The virus doesn't spread as easily not only due to fewer people being susceptible, those that are susceptible don't spread it as easily as those who caught it already.
3) The priority is to roll out the vaccine to the older folks first. This makes sense to me as the vaccine is stated to be effective for the older generation and those groups are driving the high death rate. <check my math with the link below>
Age group proportion of COVID deaths:
-- 75+, it's 58%
-- 65+, it's 79%
-- 55+, it's 91%
4) Treatments will continue to get better.
5) Seasonality
Tabulated data on provisional COVID-19 deaths by age, sex, race and Hispanic origin, and comorbidities. Also includes an index of state-level and county-level mortality data available for download.
www.cdc.gov
Case counts will look grim for a while, but there are already good signs in the heartland as some of the states appeared to have peaked.