That's not how I understand it. "Flattening the curve" refers to reducing the peak. In the models I've seen, at the end of the epidemic, the %of population who have been infected is roughly the same with and without intervention. The point is that there were fewer infected at the same time.
Reducing the load on the medical system is the immediate goal, but the total number of people infected will also be smaller.
Take the extreme example of Taiwan. If reports are accurate and they maintain their current situation, the literally flat curve there will lead to a few thousand people getting infected out of 23 million.
Or compare this outbreak to the first SARS, where asymptomatic spreading was much less of an issue. Very few people globally got SARS, exactly because interventions to stop the spread were effective.
> Very few people globally got SARS, exactly because interventions to stop the spread were effective.
But SARS was also much less contagious than this virus, especially during the asymptomatic phase. SARS also was much more lethal, meaning people that got it had less of a chance of transmitting it, because they were dead.
This virus is kind of the worst of all world's, in that it's very dangerous but only for a relatively small portion of the population, and that it can be spread by asymptomatic people much more easily. This means that it's very easy for any "embers" burning anywhere to eventually flare up into huge blazes wherever there are large number of people that still don't have immunity.
That's called "containment," not "flattening the curve." It's great that some countries have been able to contain the virus, and I hope it lasts. I wish I could believe we had sufficient leadership and discipline to achieve that in the USA.
