Article says "We'll be fine" if we take all the right steps to stop the spread. SARS didn't affect the world remotely as seriously as COVID-19 already has.

I think this is a reasonable article, but the headline is a bit click baity, given what are and will be the health and economic consequences. This is not Levitt fault but the editorial choice.

This isn't like the first sars. The first sars was pretty contagious but not like sars 2. The first sars was pretty deadly but not like sars 2.

The article seems reasonable, but people who are much more concerned about sars 2 than we were about sars 1 are rationally responding to very different circumstances - so I think your editorialisation misses the picture.

You're underselling your case. COVID-19 has already killed 20x as many people as the 2002-2004 SARS outbreak, infected 40x as many, and it's still going up. Responding to this with "lol we've had this problem before" is just foolish.

The first SARS was actually more deadly, but less contagious.