Italy seems to be an outlier. They're hit significantly harder then any other country.

Not true. France is hit, eastern France's hospitals are at full capacity. Doctors are starting to consider letting people over 70 die without access to an ICU.

Also, it's kind of strange that on this forum people do not get the notion of exponential increase. It's twice worst every 72 hours. Time runs out really fast.

People totally get exponential increase. I agree it's really bad given that we have infinite population! Oh wait, we don't. The exponential increase will go on for 3-4 weeks after which there will be no more people to infect; the time in ICU is 2-3 week, there's overlap, so in say a month we will be done. Recessions last years; in case of Great Depression, a decade. Remember how Great Depression ended in Europe?

That was exactly my thoughts. The article makes valid points but this does not fit.

FWIW Italy has a very active anti-vax movement:

https://bppj.berkeley.edu/2018/10/25/the-anti-vaccination-mo...

Effect on Italian measles outbreak:

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/italy-vaccines-anti-vaxxer-po...

Anti-vaxxers are unlikely to get annual flu shots and are, as a consequence, subject to both the annual flu strains and to covid-19.