and maybe that's correct, but doesn't seem in line with some of the scientist predictions (which may very well be wrong as well).

Without mitigations, the expectation was more that the curve would grow quickly and get high for many months, leading to many deaths, then come down and probably not re-occur in the near future. With extreme mitigation, the expectation was that the curve would start growing quickly but get cut off and head back toward zero UNTIL extreme mitigations were relaxed, when it would start to grow again. That pattern would repeat for a while until there was better ability to isolate individual cases and avoid spread (or until there was a vaccine) - and extreme mitigations were no longer needed. This in theory would last longer than if you did nothing, but lead to far fewer deaths.