Do you think Italy is in panic mode because they hate Trump?
They might be a little older and have a few more smokers but they shut things down because they had no other way to stop the spread and their hospitals were being overwhelmed. I haven't seen a convincing argument why things will go significantly better here, especially with our lack of testing.
I'll admit that I didn't see "all" of Italy, and it was 30 years ago but...
As a country they have a higher average population density than the US, Their personal hygiene standards are not as high as is what I consider the US average, even accounting for scuzzy people here. Their health system is not the same as the US, they do not have the capacity we do.
They aren't a 3rd world country but they aren't far removed from it.
As for the actual 3rd world shitholes that have a high infection and death rate those places also tend to pack their people in pretty tight in their population centers and they tend to have personal hygiene standards that would make a pig cringe.
In the US the distribution has been in areas with a high population density. So far the fatalities have been very heavily skewed toward older people with previously health conditions that were in close proximity to other older people with underlying health issues.
When large numbers of nominally healthy people start croaking I'll get worried. In the meantime I will avoid large public gatherings of people, give the majority of my co-workers as wide a berth as possible, don't lick the handles on shopping carts and wash my hands regularly, so no real changes.