Honestly, so many people in government rely on data only instead of going out and seeing what's going on. And if you use your intuition instead of the data, you open yourself up to criticism if you guess wrong one time out of ten, even though the people using models might be wrong nine times out of ten.

This situation was exacerbated because of the incubation time making it so that things could seem fine even if they weren't. China lied, but Italy and Spain looked like they reaffirmed how serious the virus was/is.

It's still dangerous, but outside of urban centers it seems like taking common sense precautions is enough.