In other words it's following a logistics curve. This is what every pandemic does: the problem is that we can't know when the inflection point is. Sometimes it's quite early on, and sometimes it isn't. Plan for the latter, hope for the former.
I've seen a surprising amount of panic and unfounded assumptions towards the worst from many commentators here on HN and though it's perhaps to be expected from a crowd with a notable number of visible hypochondriacs, it's disappointing to see too. This isn't to say that concerns about the virus should be neglected or that people shouldn't take practical precautionary measures seriously but someone leaping to cataclysmic conclusions based on early figures is no more substantive than another person dismissing the whole thing as nothing major. Both are based on notions without backing and impossible foreknowledge.
Is/was there a whole lot of evidence of this? Was it a local problem in some parts of China? Or was it unfounded? It seems to me there's been just as much of this going on in the west + we're doing a much worse job of handling the epidemic than China has done. I don't have any personal opinion on China generally but the amount of China bashing + hypocrisy in the last few weeks has been astonishing. Supposedly they are even at the point where they are shipping supplies they no longer need to Italy (masks + other equipment) and considering sending people to help too.
There's almost zero chance you see peak virus before end of March in the US. From what I hear, most people are predicting peaks in Europe in late April / early May and peaks in the US a week or two after.
I'm not sure how much faster you think we'll see peak than that.
Maybe you mean the tail will be shorter? Most people I see are predicting Coronavirus will impact consumer behavior until end of year. I don't have the first clue how likely that is.
After draconian measures. Unless there are huge lockdowns, that same point won't be reached so soon elsewhere.
The potential downsides for "dismissing the whole thing as nothing major" are a lot higher than "leaping to cataclysmic conclusions". Better safe than sorry. Better to be prepared than unprepared.
And at a similar death toll, and with the epidemic continuing to flatten towards an asymptote if they were lifted today?
The US is not prepared for those methods. Not culturally or legally. For better or for worse, it's the sort of thing that can only happen in an authoritarian dictatorship.
I fully expect the US to inflect much, much later than China did.