About that exponential growth curve

i) I notice commentators in social media who think the necessity of radical social distancing via lockdowns, curfews, and self-quarantine is vindicated by an "exponential" transmission rate when the pandemic spreads to a new area. The quote statistics about the daily expansion rate of infections. 

I'm no expert, but I assume the pattern is for an outbreak to initially spike, then taper off once the most susceptible members of society have been infected. It's not a continuous upward curve until everyone is infected inasmuch as individuals vary in their susceptibility to infection as well as their natural ability to recover. If so, it's not an uncontrolled pandemic but naturally plateaus. 

ii) On a related note, there's a widely expressed concern that unless radical social distancing measure are enacted and enforced (lockdowns, curfews), the elderly and immunodeficient will be disparately impacted by the pandemic. While that's a morally admirable concern and consideration, policies that lead to economic collapse will also have disastrous effects on the elderly and immunodeficient. It will lead to pension plans going belly up, retirement investments drying up, acceleration of entitlement programs like S.S., Medicare, Medicaid becoming insolvent–not to mention bankrupting hospitals. Quality medical care depends on economic prosperity. Policies that cause economic devastating are not a way to save the elderly.