Flattening the curve was about preventing the hospital system from being overwhelmed. It was about solving the crisis from the point of view of civic administra

Flattening the curve was about preventing the hospital system from being overwhelmed. It was about solving the crisis from the point of view of civic administrators and politicians. So, keeping people safe was a secondary goal: the primary purpose was to keep the system from failing outright. IMHO, consequent to the misinterpretation of this, people assumed that if the curve was flattening, the problem was being solved, since they thought that the curve was about their safety, rather than about stretching the deaths out so that queues didn't form.