COVID-19 that doesn't put you in the hospital is like the flu. It has, as far as anybody can say at present, the same results as the flu.
If that kind of infection imparts immunity, wonderful. That many more people already immune.
As somebody pointed out, China's strategy resulted in a country where most of the population lacks immunity and is at risk of being infected from the outside. That's fine if a vaccine comes along. Otherwise, it's foolish. Odds are that the virus would escape, and given the number of false negatives and asymptomatic-yet-infectious carriers, you're not going to contain it. Those countries so far successful did what many in the US did not want: locked down the borders and had really harsh monitoring/tracking regimes.
Notice that Trump's screw ups do *not* account for Italy, France, or numerous other countries. If everybody knew, then lots of countries are just as stupid as Trump. If there was an intelligence report given to NATO, than Trump is no stupider than Merkel and Macron. Many of the most blistering accusations wind up as special pleading--"yes, everybody else got it wrong, but in Trump's case it was special" or "everybody knew except most people, so Trump's especially bad." DUers applauded when Italy, in response to thinking Chinese (tourists, in their case) could be spreading the disease encouraged Italians to hug Chinese tourists. Italy must have wanted to punch way above its weight in terms of COVID corpses, you'd think--but that's not what they wanted.
Notice that if the numbers of unreported cases are astronomical--and I'm assuming that between hospital admits and at-home deaths that's all the severe cases that would require special attention--it means the mortality rate would have to be really low, in which case it starts looking more and more flu-like in terms of outcome. The worse this particular accusation, the weaker the accusation becomes.
Japan is seeing a surge in infections. They squelched their first wave so it was more like a minor ripple. The problem with a lot of social distancing is that it gets harder the longer it goes. And since the punishment for violating it is both trivial for some groups and not immediate, it'll get harder to enforce. Countries said that they locked down and within a week people were champing at the bit and in some cases violating the lockdown order--it wasn't defiance, it was boredom. Stringent orders make even less sense in areas where contact is already less common--live and go out and about in NYC and you run into people. Do the same thing in rural Kansas, lots fewer people and R0 is going to plummet. One size does not fit all.
One small school in California is a good example of this. It did not close. It's still open. No students have gotten sick. Nobody affiliated with the school has shown any symptoms. The town's not seen any cases identified as such, and people aren't collapsing in the streets. And yet their lack of conformity agitated some and it was a very minor national scandal. Sort of "why do you hate your kids?" fact-free judgementalism. As the school spokesperson said, they did not meet the CDC guidance for school closures. When they did, they would. If the governor tells everybody to go inside and lock their doors because there's a lion loose near the San Diego Zoo, it makes no sense. If people complain after being locked in their houses and apts., the governor could always say, "Yes, but the number of people killed by lions in Bakersfield, Ontario, Sacramento, and San Francisco during the lockdown was zero. My precautionary order worked."
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