> And the article (...) is saying that merely reducing the speed by social distancing--which most people (...) think is going to be sufficient to not overwhelm

> And the article (...) is saying that merely reducing the speed by social distancing--which most people (...) think is going to be sufficient to not overwhelm hospitals, and that life will be able to return to normal soon--is not going to be sufficient to get the peak of that curve under that line... Sorry but you're either oblivious to the concept of are making an effort to not understand it. Flattening the curve is not a panacea. Flattening a curve is a last resort approach to mitigate a logistics problem. It's patently obvious to everyone who is aware of the concept that it's highly unlikely that demand for intensive care due to covid infections will steadily remain under the service saturation levels. That's a laudable goal, but unrealistic. What you are failing to understand is that the end goal of flattening the curve is that lowering the peak demand by distributing it throughout time will enable better resource utilization with less scarcity. The goal is that instead of experiencing a sharp increase of, say, 15% of the total population requiring intensive care concentrated in a 2 or 3 week timespan, you slow down the spread of the disease so that the nation's healthcare system can serve a larger portion of the population, thus avoiding unnecessary deaths due to lack of medical care.