I'm not sure your data rhymes with your interpretation. Having 0.5%~1% of people having a positive corona test in the last two weeks means that every week 3.2~1.6 million people are walking around with Corona. I would not call that a handful of people. (This is even the lower bound as it excludes untested people which are positive)

With a fatality rate of 2% (source: https://ourworldindata.org/mortality-risk-covid?country=~USA) that means 64~32 thousand die every two weeks. This translates to 1.7~0.8 million people dying every year. With that I'm obviously ignoring the large spectrum between 'no lasting symptoms' and 'death'.

With one of the most lax responses in the western world I cannot see how you conclude from this that the US's response is 'overblown and hysterical'