Extreme measures is to slow down the first wave of cases so the number of patients needing medical attention is under the local capacity. Death rate is between 0.6% to 8% depending on how you can treat the patients and that requires that you have enough capacity to handle it. Over time we will have better medicines to reduce the need of ICUs and vaccines and then containment will not be necessary but we will continue to handle it as a seasonal disease.
There are approximately 20 full-service ventilators per 100k population in the united states. Let's say 1% of cases require hospitalization and ventilation. That means we can sustain a sick population of 200 per 100k, or 0.2% at any given time.
You underestimate just how unprepared we are for this situation. It is not possible to "bend the curve" enough to keep everyone safe (infected below 2% of the population). Full stop, that little chart from bendthecurve.com with the nice flat blue curve that goes under "medical system capacity" will not happen. That's fantasy.
By all means we should do everything we can, the more we can slow the disease the fewer people will die, but the happy fantasy scenarios about everybody washes their hands and doesn't go to the sportsball game and we bend the curve enough that our medical system's capacity will be sufficient is just a fantasy.
Further, the lower we reduce the reproduction rate, the longer this crisis will last. This is a crass observation, but if you let it burn through the population it'll be done in a few months. If you really "bend that curve" and substantially decrease reproduction rate, then it'll take correspondingly longer to exhaust its susceptible population. That means sustaining quarantine measures for a longer period of time.
Researchers point to Coronavirus peaking around June or July. That means it will remain a serious problem through at least August or September ("peak" doesn't mean it's done, it just means it's slowing down). Interventions will extend that further. We need to consider the possibility that quarantine will be required for an extended period. How will this work if we need to turn our economy off for 6 months? Nine months? A year?
Grandparent is probably correct that if China loosens its quarantine measures that it's going to bounce back. And in fact that is a problem that everyone has to consider.
I did not said that we are prepared for it. What I was saying that we need extreme measures to slow down the number of cases and not that we will have full success at doing it but we can save a lot of lives and this the only thing that really matters.
