A couple of things:
1. Not Bullshit
This is most definitely not bullshit -- and countries/states are not overreacting. Based on current data and consensus of experts around the world, this appears to be the Spanish Flu of the 21st century. Spanish Flu killed 50-100 million people around 1918, when the world only had 1.8 billion people. We have around 4.3x the population now, with higher population density and more interconnected global relations. If this is on par with Spanish Flu in transmission and mortality rate, it would be devastating to the entire world. The mitigation actions being taken now are completely appropriate based on the current data and historic analysis.
2. The New Religion - The Church of Conspiracy
There are some people who are conspiracy addicts. I mentioned this before... I truly believe this is an escalating problem in society. The internet has made is easy to spread conspiracy theories (even ones that are thoroughly or partially debunked) But on the internet, the content remains, and some people are drawn to it like mosquitoes drawn to light... they want a group to belong to, and a belief system, so they choose conspiracy theories as their religion. I have old friends from high school and college like this. They post BS about faked moon landings, 9/11 inside jobs, and other conspiracy theories that have been debunked. I've seen there is a good amount of people who think that Covid-19 is just another conspiracy... that there's some global men in black who are controlling the media with the goal of taking away our freedom. Unfortunately, like religion, facts and evidence don't persuade most conspiracy addicts for altering their views.
3. Some Data Points to Keep in Mind When Comparing Countries - Mostly Missed by Media
In regards to comparisons with Italy and other countries - There are a few things that should be considered that the media just fails to mention. Good journalism and data science is just not as important as catchy headlines.
Italy's median age of population is 45.5 years old.
USA median age is 38.1 years old.
China's median age is 37.4 years old.
And the World median age is 30.4 years old.
These are important data points. They don't make black and white difference, but they're good to keep in mind when comparing country to country, in addition to health care capabilities, and timelines of events. (also interesting to note when I was looking into this: median age in the continent of Africa: only 19.7 years old!... that's crazy)
Italy population density 518 per square mile.
China population density 377 per square mile.
USA population density 87 per square mile.
These density numbers are mildly important. They don't make a huge difference compared to other factors, however its good to keep them in mind. Italy has much higher population density, a higher tourism economy, and significantly older population than the USA, so there's reason to estimate that percentage-wise, it may not hit us as hard as Italy, given a similar timeline of actions of mitigation.
4. Media will Continue to focus on Total Cases, but Critical/Serious Cases and deaths is better data for trend analysis.
I mentioned before, but tracking the Total Cases curve right now is a lot less important than tracking the curve of deaths and serious/critical cases. The Total Cases / Active Cases curve is going to look terrible for the next few weeks/months, but a good part of the reason for the extreme slope of that curve will be just that more tests will be administered to moderate cases, and eventually to mild cases as well. This rapid increase of testing capabilities needs to be considered if trying to glean meaning from the slope of the cases curve. This rapid increase in testing of more moderate cases will also bring down the mortality rate, however, it still appears that this will end up being around 5x to 20x more deadly than the flu, with widespread transmission. The future hindsight mortality rate is the hardest thing to estimate, because we just don't know how many moderate to mild cases are out there right now.
