Flattening the curve will mean fewer people in the hospital at once, making successful treatment more likely of more people. Plus the springtime weather may mean a flu-like retreat of the virus. This gives time to develop and test vaccines.
Agree wholeheartedly that flattening the curve will enable successful treatment of more people as the hospital resources for the really sick will be more available. Meanwhile more and more of the population that doesn’t need hospital treatment to recover means more people are “immunized” by surviving the disease and will not be contagious after their recovery. Price to be paid short term with inherently long term effects on the economy, tradeoffs have to be made - but at the end of the day more people are alive. The next two weeks are likely critical to understanding how effective different measures are working across the country, e.g., closing schools in OH vs keeping them open in NY.
There are likely some who would like to see the worst case scenario - 10% of the population over 80 years old and a lesser but still significant percentage of those 60-80 gone in the next couple of months. Social Security problem solved. Plus they would blame Trump.
You are correct
Good comment.