Case fatality rate isn't the same as the actual mortality rate. Case fatality rate is an indirect measure of your testing ability, testing criteria, and testing procedures. It says very little about how deadly the disease is, and comparing it across countries is completely useless.
Actually, it's worse than useless, because any conclusions made from it are going to be horribly wrong.
Which is why we locked down major cities to slow down the spread. We don't know how many would have died otherwise but it would have been a lot more. Saying that the experts who urged us to lock down to avoid millions of deaths were wrong because we locked down and there weren't millions of deaths is a bit odd.
My recollection, which could be flawed, were that some experts projected millions of deaths even with lockdown. Moreover I recall the experts not disclaiming their predictions, which is a huge problem. The fact of the matter is that we don't know what would have happened, and experts and policymakers alike (IMO) are in desperate need to figuring out how to convey uncertainty with honesty, ahead of time, not retrospectively. Treat your information consumers with respect for their intelligence and they just might not act like idiots.
Projected before any response. That was pre-lockdown. That was at a time where there were no tests because the CDC botched trying to manufacture their own. If business as usual carried on since mid March we could have seen those numbers realized.
That is the ultimate joke in all this - if expertise is correct and mitigates the virus and prevents the worst case scenario agendas will push rhetoric that they were exaggerated estimates and overblew the situation. And they can say that with confidence knowing any worst case scenario was avoided.
Actually, it's worse than useless, because any conclusions made from it are going to be horribly wrong.