The combination of rapid spread and not negligible mortality makes covid19 a much higher threat globally than most other diseases, as has been shown repeatedly. Even a lot of not-at-risk individuals will die from it. We really shouldn't be arguing over these facts anymore.
and in fact, we're still lucky. nothing guarantees that we might not have a worse infection in the future that is as contagious but much deadlier (think of something like Ebola but much more contagious).
if we can somehow diminish the threat, it's worth thinking about it. it might be that the tradeoffs are not worth it (locking everyone up for two years for example wouldn't qualify), but it's still worth thinking about options. that includes imperfect options like a vaccine.
you do understand what it means to be at the beginning of an exponential curve, right? this is not going to grow linearly, if this is not contained somehow, you could be looking at millions of deaths in the US alone.
again, all these numbers have been debated so many times before.
> you could be looking at millions of deaths in the US alone
That's not true. Very worst case scenario will be 160,000 deaths based on our last data. But around 60,000 is more probable even we go out of lockdown right now.
notice the preceding clause in the sentence you quoted, "if not contained somehow".
The numbers you cite all assume social distancing measures, it says so at the very top (and also the forecast only goes to the end of August, there is no guarantee that the virus doesn't come back in winter or so, we saw this with the Spanish flu).
of course, no growth is truly exponential forever, but a sigmoid model is still basically exponential in its initial stage and as long as there is no big saturation factor (i.e. lots of herd immunity), the limiting factor is negligible.
so, as long as herd immunity is not high, the curve is approximately exponential.
" that includes imperfect options like a vaccine."
A vaccine is not an imperfect option. It is our standard way of defeating diseases. Only problem here is, there is none ready, but several on its way. This is the only reason why covid19 is a higher threat and not really because of the disease itself. Neither our medical system, nor our immune system is prepared for it.
So we need a vaccine, for the risk groups, yes. But why do we need to give up on privacy and freedom for it, I do not really understand.
The world is full of deadly deseases anyway, so endangered people allways have to look out and vaccines allmost never guarantee 100% immunity.