Easy to call it hysteria when you're not the patient in the ICU bed, a family member of that person, or the nurses/doctors/respiratory therapists trying to keep that patient alive.
The so-called "hysteria" is a short term effort (seemingly at least partially successful) to prevent full-out disaster, advised by the best scientists and physicians we have. Unfortunately it was poorly implemented (or not) by the ignoramus politicians we have, in some instances. Mayor DeBlasio (a Democrat) and President Trump/Jared Kushner (Republicans) are particularly notable for having failed miserably in this crisis early on. Are the scientists and physicians always right? Of course not. But anyone who doesn't think we'd have 5, 10 or even 100 times the number of sick/dead citizens without the "hysteria" is deeply misinformed. And the numbers of deaths are going up, even with the efforts being made.
The stay at home, close down much of society orders will recede of course. They have to. But until a vaccine is developed (probably not for a year or more, maybe a lot more), herd immunity occurs (ditto), or a safe and effective oral treatment regimen is developed, we're going to need to wear masks in public, keep people far apart in restaurants, ban large public gatherings and generally hunker down for a good long time to come. This is the new normal, unless you want to kill a significant percentage of the people over 60 in our society, and a distressing number of young people as well. And overwhelm the hospitals so they cannot take good care of patients who need heart interventions, hip surgery and similar common problems.
People who believe this is some sort of conspiracy against Trump, a leftist plot, etc. are members of the Flat Earth Society
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