maybe in the US, but lockdowns in many other countries have suppressed virus transmission completely. Why would our goal be different? Because we can't achieve that?
Comparing it to someplace like Taiwan or Singapore doesn't make any sense.
Comparing to those countries doesn't make much sense either because US is much wealthier. We should be doing far better than both, and we're not.
In the US, any and every death of someone who had the virus, and many who did not, are still counted among the death tolls. The recent case of the guy who died from alcohol poisoning comes to mind, though I personally know of others who died from other causes, and were counted even though they hadnt been tested.
Conversely, there is good reason to be skeptical of China's accounting as well- both due to government interference and the simple fact that they were not able to reliably test the majority of cases.
If US has twice the test positive rate as another, they're only testing half the cases.
The fact is no matter what metric you look at, the US is doing worse with our response than almost anywhere else.
And we don’t know how China is really ever doing about anything. We need to stop confusing statements from China with transparency.
Not to mention the human toll of quarantine- I live surrounded by a few hundred acres of forest, my cousin in a studio apartment. My daily life has hardly changed since I also work from home. She lives in or near paris, I think, and couldn't go 10 feet past her apartment door without a permit, and mostly got that only for groceries. Even still, she managed to catch it (or a similar disease, since she was refused testing).
Some people on HN love to hate on rural life, but I honestly wouldn't have it any other way.