So I don't buy all the hype, can somebody tell me why i'm wrong? I keep hearing claims from brilliant people that 50-80% of the population could easily be infected.
Exponential growth is obviously the answer, and is occurring because the median person is infecting more than one other person, which right now is coming from people not knowing they have the virus and not worrying about getting the virus. This will change as more people become infected. Assuming even the most BASIC of measures are taken, (people washing their hands, not going to crowded areas often, not travelling etc.) this will probably stop exponential growth.
In China, 5 people have been infected for every 100,000 citizens, and the virus isn't exponentially growing anymore. But fine, maybe they took good measures.
In Italy, it's closer to 20 people per 100,000. Fine, four times as high, but still a TINY portion of the population. If you assume that their graph will ever look anything like China's, there is no way in hell more than 1% of the population will be infected. It probably won't come within two orders of magnitude.
In what god forsaken situation could even 1% of the US get the Coronavirus?
Even without government intervention, as cases increase people will start taking this more seriously and the exponential growth will stop. Even if you don't have symptoms but have the virus, you aren't going to that concert or that vacation because you don't want to catch the virus from someone else. As long as you at most infect 1 other person, the exponential growth stops. This will happen way before 1% of the population is infected.
EDIT: I'm incorrect in the idea that people shouldn't worry about it, you should, but I believe that worrying about it will be enough to stop the exponential growth.