Those examples (China, Italy) have taken drastic measures to keep people from socializing, in order to slow the spread of the disease in order to not overwhelm the health system.
That's the killer - once you reach maximal hospital capacity, people die because of not only the severe virus infections, but because they can't get the required treatment for their other unrelated ailments as well (e.g. a stroke, or a car accident etc...). Italian doctors already have to make really hard decisions with regards to who they will admit into ICU since there are not enough beds for everyone.
So if only 1% of the country gets severe symptoms requiring hospitalization in the US, that's 3 million people needing intensive care unit beds, on top of the normal load.
Measures in Italy and China won't prevent 80% of the country to be infected (mostly, people will not need hospitalization - only a small fraction will), it only tries to reduce the number of people needing intensive care at the same time, in order to not overload the health system and save as many of them as possible (since they can't make enough ICU beds and equipment appear out of thin air)
EDIT: and of course, buy time until a vaccine or other treatment method is available...
Even if you look at Italy, though, and if you assumed that their numbers were accurate (highly unlikely), 20/100k is only 5-6 doublings away from 1% of the population, or as little as 3-4 weeks if not properly contained.
Hopefully you're correct and it won't grow out of control and infect most of the world, but for now the idea is to keep the burden on the medical systems low to prevent knock-on effects of over-running our caring capacity.
If people think it's serious, they'll take actions to prevent that serious outcome.
If people think it's not serious, then it may become serious.
Most cases so far have been traced back to people coming back from a vacation trip to Northern Italy and Austria (ski resorts also popular among Italians), but now cases are popping up where health authorities are unable to trace the source of infection, and this, rather than raw numbers, is what has prompted the heightened alert level.
> maybe the took good measures.
How do you "take good measures" without "hype"? Will people mass-self-quarantine if you tell them "it's just the flu, nothing to worry about"?
Exponential growth 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.
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.
Hell, I heard someone say that if we stay home and change how we live then the "virus has won.". I don't even know what I'm supposed to say to that.
Another point to consider is that this virus is apparently "novel", meaning that humans in general have not had time to build up significant immunity. Even if measures are taken, they will likely just push the date of infection for each individual out into the future some--most people will eventually be exposed no matter what.
It's pretty obvious if you separated people and kept them in their homes the virus would stop spreading. So what? The world cannot just stop forever. Life will go on, and so will this virus. It is with us now.
Unfortunately this is going to change your life and people you know are going to get very sick and die. Please tell the older people in your life to be very careful and DO NOT downplay the risks to them.
Please don't exaggerate. In another thread here on HN someone from Italy posted exactly what it's like. They go for walks, they go to bars or restaurants and maintain 1 meter distance between people, and if they need to care for a relative or someone else they're permitted to travel to other towns/cities.
Sure, people's lives are a bit different, but say they're on "lockdown" is simply not true.
One of those typically made out of ignorance, so there's really no point in carrying on with such strongly opinionated train of thought.
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.