If you don't do what China or South Korea did, we're not "going to be fine". The US handling of this is extremely poor. One shouldn't give the people false hope.
> He analyzed 78 countries with more than 50 reported cases of COVID-19 every day and sees “signs of recovery.” He’s not looking at cumulative cases, but the number of new cases every day — and the percentage growth in that number from one day to the next.
> Levitt acknowledges that his figures are messy, and that the official case counts in many areas are too low because testing is spotty. But even with incomplete data, “a consistent decline means there’s some factor at work that is not just noise in the numbers,” he said.
We will solve this, one way or another. It won't be easy, and there will be a ton of pain (a lot of which is already being felt). But a solution will be found (my best guess: probably a vaccine in the medium to long run, and in the short to medium term stronger testing and isolation regimes to let us get back to some semblance of normal life again)
I think there is just cause for spreading fear until people get it into their heads that this is serious and behave accordingly, at which point the focus needs to switch towards keeping people optimistic and healthy in isolation without social interaction.
The alternative is millions of deaths and a collapse of our medical system.
In the U.S., our nearly complete lack of leadership at the federal level set us back by at least a month, but state and local governments are catching up fast.