i got that picture from here:

https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2020/05/coronavirus-growth-in-western-countries-may-14-update/

kevin drum is arguing there that he expects that the united states should see a peak and a rise due to the loosening of social distancing, and that if we don't see such a thing then the epidemiologists will have hell to answer to.

i've been arguing that social distancing is pseudo-science from the start. but, i actually don't expect the curve in the united states to fall off quickly - and don't expect the curve in canada to, either. the reason is that canada and the united states are both very big countries with several epidemics, whereas a country like sweden is really just one big city. you'd be better off being as specific as possible, but you could fudge a comparison of all of italy to new york city; comparing individual countries in europe to the entire united states is pointless.

rather, you'd want to compare canada or the united states to the european union, and it's easy to see intuitively that if you superimpose these graphs on top of each other then they will intersect to form a plateau.

so, i expect that the united states will, indeed, plateau, but it was has less to do with social distancing restrictions being lifted and more to do with the fact that you're dealing with 50 different curves pasted on top of each other, rather than just one.

for that reason, the flattening curve in canada is also probably predictive. it's not going to fall like it did in italy, it's going to take a while...