Growing more and more pessimistic that we will see much of a season this year. The curves just don't show the US really turning the corner at all yet- despite "most" people being somewhat shut down (no idea why the FED won't step in and put this to a stop- well yes of course I do but that's for another conversation).
The IHME site released by Birx appears to have a great deal of sensitivity in it regarding the actual impact of a lock down- and each day the predicted death count is increasing as we still have states that aren't locked down, and we have states that aren't really adhering to it even after issuance (even here, go by the local Lowes or Menards--- PACKED- how many new cases are being birthed in those locations each day????).
Still too many people that don't know they have it going around giving it to others right now so the curve while likely flattening enough to really help the hospital load, is just going to elongate and thus make it a longer time to get back to "normal".
The anti-body test stands a chance at getting us back to some normalcy until we get a vaccine. Germany is already preparing a "cleared" type of card for those that have proven they've already had it and are good to go (uncertain for how long yet but I bet we'll find out you have a good long term immunity to it after infection clears...). We appear, according to Birx, just about ready to be able to do this simple finger prick and test process. Run that out, and you can easily see teams pushing this through their rosters and clearing guys to play in a very rapid fashion (Birx herself yesterday said she could see an entire hospital testing their entire system in a day). The problem becomes, let's say a LOT of people have already had it, let's say it gets to 50% (as a representative sample that would imply 50% of the US has already had it), that's still only 50% of a roster that would be cleared to participate... that's not going to work.
I could definitely see this type of testing being used to allow the US to get some All-Star type games set up as charity, goodwill, spirit lifters in the very near term- things just to give us something to watch and enjoy, which would be great for the overall spirit, but short of a miracle vaccine popping up in the next 6-8 weeks, I don't see a real NFL season sadly...
If interested in the IHME models:
https://covid19.healthdata.org/projections
Right now, and it's early, but right now IN is actually looking pretty good in terms of being able to withstand the "surge" (grading on a terribly sad gradient of course...)