Jon Marsa comments

The simple fact of the matter is this whole thing has been overblown around the world. Japan is the only country who's handled this well so far. The majority of lockdowns aren't necessary at all.

To those of you who think the Italy situation will repeat itself around the world, I suspect their situation was somewhat unique. Yes, we might have a run on a hospital here and there... but I don't think most of the world will see the same type of situation unfold.

Why did it strike Italy so hard? I don't know for sure, but it seems largely due to a few factors:

More interaction between old and young than many other countries. But Japan has something similar you say? Yes, but....

I suspect the average Japanese senior is healthier than the average Italian senior. Not to say this is always and at all times the case, but Japanese people eat healthier and have much better healthcare than most of the people in Europe. Speaking of which...

The Italian health care system isn't that strong. Health care throughout most of Europe doesn't compare in quality with Japan or the U.S. The Europeans who think otherwise are getting the phrases "better quality" and "less expensive" mixed up. Because organizations who rate a country's health care almost always use the cost of care when you need it as a factor, it tends to make places where care costs less when you need it (but you pay more in taxes) look better in quality than they really are.

I strongly suspect the death rate for this disease is far, far lower than the experts believe. It's quite possible there are hundreds of people walking around with few or no symptoms for every person who has serious issues... though I admit this last assertion is a bit more speculative than my other three points.

Evidence for this last point - at the time of this writing, 16,591 people have died from the virus around the world. 12,079 are currently in critical or serious condition. (source: worldmeters.info). If everybody who's now in critical condition or serious condition dies (unlikely) that gives us a death rate of .0745 percent - hardly the 3 percent number the WHO touted for weeks. And the .0745 percent number doesn't even include the people who are walking around with no symptoms.