If the dude didn't proved this with papers and results and dates I wouldn't believe him but it really happened. So, that means pandemic is not going away, it is still here and that means recovery may not be as quick as people imagined it would be, we could still be going down once again.
Maybe the father of your friend have an existing illness and the virus made it worse that's why he became a casualty of this disease. Many country tried and few of them became successful but for countries who are in 3rd world category struggling so much much on this incidents, But I really think we are close to have a vaccine and everything will back to normal and economy will be revive once the research companies will mass produce and released their successful product.
I heard it is difficult to survive from the virus if we are infected, but that will depend on how good the hospital to handle the patient. If the hospital has enough doctors and nurses and a good infrastructure to handle the patient, it will be no problem for them to help them. We can hope that people who infect the virus can survive in hard situations while the vaccine still on the way to be produced.