Just to be clear on my use of the smallpox example...I'm not trying to draw a perfect parallel, just want to use that example in the same way as Fareed does, i.e. show how important - and doable - it is to marshall international resources to reduce, if not eliminate, the impact future pathogens which will absolutely recur. I join him in 'trumpeting' the call for increased cooperation - and trust in the professionals who have earned their stripes with smallpox, measles, etc...i.e. follow their advice and guidelines...even when they are "tweaked" as new knowledge is gained on a 'novel pathogen'. It appears to me that some folks, with zero background or understanding, want to sever relations with those proven services and subject everyone else (yet including themselves) to a much higher risk than needs be...make sense?
First off, you're obviously right in that achieving "zero fatalities" in not possible for many of the maladies that confront us...COVID-19 being one of them. This has never been even contemplated from all that I've seen. What I do see, and hear, from news reports, and first hand accounts from family doctors (you've heard me reference the ID and ICU Docs), is that our political and HC leaders are 'frightened' at the prospect of having hospital systems overrun with COVID patients, thereby squeezing out nearly all other serious or emergency treatments...I believe L.A. is very nearly there. So, aside from mortality numbers that already dwarf anything we seen since 1918, those are the numbers that jump out to them...they vary by locale, but they are real and finite...we only have so many doctors, nurses, specialty staff, etc.
The frustrating thing for them is that, as evidenced by China, South Korea, New Zealand and a few other countries, this fear needn't be there...if only we would band together and follow professional advice and counsel...understandably difficult in our diverse country, but we need to keep trying...'cause there's going to be more of this in the future.
More to your point though, short of an absolute lockdown like in a totalitarian nation such as China, containing the virus until a vaccine arrives (and hopefully taken by 75-80%) here in the U.S. is a lot like 'herding cats' because many citizens, left to their own devices/choices won't sit still and let the virus die (it only lasts about 3 days max outside the body of an infected person)...while it's not possible to achieve zero deaths, it's totally irresponsible to not take the only actions that will preserve hundreds of thousands of lives for some other day's toll, and those actions you already know...social distancing, mask wearing, etc. All we're missing right now is leadership, motivation and resolve.