I actually happened to do exactly that in late Feburary, and he pointed out that about 1% of the population die every year naturally, and WWII killed double-digits in many countries, so COVID-19 killing ~3% was certainly something civilization could survive (remember that the early fatality rate estimates were much higher than they are now, and the vast differences in fatality rate by age weren't yet known).

Dunno what he might have said to if I had been a patient. But certainly part of that job is to put things in perspective!