Ebola makes you so sick that you have to stay in bed and inevitably limit the spread of the disease since you cannot interact with people anymore.
Covid-19 have flu like symptoms and you can still perform your daily duties and spread the virus to all people who interact with you. We have a portion of the population who's in a risk group due to underlying conditions and/or old age. No country is prepared to have a substantial increase in the number of people needing hospitalisation all of sudden. There are no ICU bed units available for hundreds of people coming all of a sudden. Specialized staff is also a problem. China had to urgently build around 10 modular hospitals to treat all the sick people.
I agree there's no need to panic, but people MUST understand the necessity to avoid social interaction. The main objective of self isolation is to slow down the spread of the disease so the Health Systems of the countries can cope with the inevitable increase in the number of people needing attention.
Italy is the perfect example of what happens when a health system gets completely overwhelmed. Add to that an already aged population and you have the equivalent of a B777 full of people dying everyday due to this damn virus.
Last edited by Pilot DAR; 18th Mar 2020 at 11:01.
Reason: removed quote which otherwise I deleted