Really, if every jurisdiction in the world overwhelms their hospital capacity it won't be ok.
What seems to be a noble lie is the apocalyptic mindset, where the coronavirus is literally the only thing that matters and we must never ask if a particular mitigation is worth the cost. Many authority figures are promoting this idea, even though they clearly don't believe it themselves and couldn't formulate effective policy if they did.
The example of Sweden seems to disagree with this assumption. They never locked down, and the current mortality is (1,203 / 10,330,000) * 100 = 0.0116%
First case on Jan 31st, no lockdowns, death rate has already flattened. Where is that crazy scary exponential growth?
The thing about the lockdowns is that evidence so far indicates that stopping 80% of non-essential economic activities voluntarily is about as bad for the economy as stopping 90+% on a mandatory basis, but it seems that the health outcomes are much better in the latter situation.
You can't know that without testing the whole population, or at least getting some controls.
The way to avoid that is to at least spread out the impact over time. Telling people it'll be okay leads to no one listening and the health system collapsing. That's human nature. Telling people it's the apocalypse means most listen and the health system survives. Welcome to humanity.