I don't know if I agree with this. There is a lot of evidence that China initially tried to repress any information about this virus, because of those actions the initial death rate and spread was probably much higher than it could have been otherwise. We don't live in an authoritarian culture (thank goodness) and the government could never legally do what China ended up doing. Although, the media and social media are doing so much damage I do wonder if at times it would be worthwhile to control them, but obviously that is really dangerous in the long run.

Also, for better or worse, our society is making a "de facto" decision to significantly hurt the economy to reduce the risk to primarily the elderly and chronically ill. In a sense this becomes somewhat of a moral decision. Most of us will not get significantly ill and this virus poses little threat, the economic damage being done is long lasting to save people that already have high morbidity risk even without the virus.