What makes COVID-19 different is the speed at which it travels. It is that fact alone that creates concern for our capacity to respond. Take Italy for example, 10,000 patients with flu complications between October and March is not unmanageable. 10,000 patients in just 12 weeks can easily overwhelm the health facilities.
The trouble with all these numbers is "spin" that is being applied. A positive test means nothing if you never get sick because it's the symptoms that produce conditions best suited to pass on the virus. That's why people with no symptoms are not being tested. There is a distinction between testing positive for exposure versus testing positive for the illness. Exposure and illness are not mutually inclusive.
Many in the press also continue to refer to this as a "disease" which is not accurate. Cancer, Alzheimer's, etc. are diseases. Covid-19 is a flu virus.
I think the only real benefit to our current shutdown is the possibility that this virus has already been making it's way around the country since last October and was largely ignored, as we spent all our public energy on political in-fighting instead of the public welfare. If that were the case then the majority of us who are younger, healthy, and going to work every day would already have been exposed. Should we get sick we would experience Covid-19 as only a mild cold or flu and write it off without a 2nd thought. It's not until we carry it home to incubate in our elderly or more vulnerable extended family that it explodes on the medical scene.