Why do you think that is? Because the stay-at-home orders worked. NY is the worst case scenario and you want to stop things before they get that bad.
If we had a magic dial for precisely tuning social distancing measures to cause minimum economic harm and death, we'd use it. Since we don't we have to err on one side or the other. So far we've erred on the side of caution, accepting short-term economic damage. As things get less crazy these measures will be gradually scaled back. It doesn't mean they were never necessary.
Y2K is going to be a big deal if we don't do anything about it. We do something about it. People complain Y2K wasn't a big deal.
That, like this, means we're doing things right. Maybe we're going a little extreme, but the alternative is likely worse, and there is never a magic dial to spend just the right amount of effort/money/time.
It's unfortunate that it's so easy to find preparation wasteful when it ends up not being necessary. But, we all have different life experiences.
To be fair, though I agree with you in general, NY-- esp NYC-- is much more dense than the rest of the country and as a result R(effective) may have been much higher there than other places. It may be the case that much stronger measures were needed there then in many other places.
So while it is true that part of the reason other places are less bad is because the policies worked, differences between the locations may also play a significant role.
The interior of the country doesn’t have the infrastructure to support exponential growth. Nurses and doctors and hospitals being idle is a sign that we chose the SF path, not the NY path.
The economic impact is of course absolutely terrible and this is shaping up to potentially be as bad as the Great Depression was. But letting the virus ravage small towns and cities without adequate support would be worse both economically and in terms of loss of life.
Regions hardest hit by COVID-19 seem (informal take) to have largely been large, dense, sprawling cities. with poor public health infrastructure or responses.
In the US, it's currently mostly Northeast cities, generally surrounding New York, doing the worst. Wuhan (11 million) is also huge. Milan (Italy), Madrid (Spain), Tehran (Iran), London (UK) have also fared poorly, especially relative to their countries.
Outbreaks in less populated regions can and do occur. -- though often within institutional populations or equivalents -- cruise ships, retirement / nursing homes, prisons and jails, as well as anti-science religious groups, notably.
And not all megacities have been hit, especially those with solid monitoring systems, response plans, and infrastructure: Hong Kong, Seoul, Taipei, Singapore, especially.
But this is a pattern to watch going forward.
Developing nation megacities seem at high risk.
There aren’t going to be any large gatherings or sporting events for the foreseeable future, lots of people are starting to wear masks and are doing much better as far as hygiene and social distancing are concerned. Why _can’t_ we start to think about getting things to slowly go back to normal? Keep the elderly (way easier for them to quarantine) and sick at home. If you can work from home, continue to do so. Everything else, figure out how to make it work within the framework of social distancing. There has to be more than a choice between “total lockdown” or “everyone’s gonna die.”