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I’m suggesting that our medical system is overwhelmed at 25,000...maybe 30,000?

I know some stats from research:

There are about 1 million total hospital beds in the United States.

Of these about 40% are available at any one time.

Of this the percentage of ICU beds is much smaller...estimated to be around 80,000 beds or so. A mild flu season is one in which 5% of the population gets the flu.

There are 370 million people in the US. 5% of that is 18,500,000.

IF the coronavirus spreads as much as a mild flu season that means that 18,500,000 will be infected.

Of those infected by Corona 80% will be mild likely requiring no medical intervention. The rest are severe to critical...usually 15% severe and 5% critical.

IF ONLY the critical 5% have to be admitted to a hospital that means 925,000 people will need ICU units.

There's not near enough beds just for that. 80,000 critical care beds total (not all available) and 925,000 needing beds.

If there are 30,000 cases in spread evenly around the country and we use the 5% critical figure that means that 1500 will need critical care. That's workable.

But the problem is that there will be geographic clusters. 30,000 cases in a smaller geographic area will overwhelm the local resources.

The scary part is that these are all BEST CASE scenarios. Only spreads as much as a mild flu. Only the critically ill (those who would die otherwise) are hospitalized. In reality it spreads more easily than the flu and there are more than 5% that have to be hospitalized.

Best case scenarios are not as bad as you think. First, you can remove about 1/2 the cases, as their infections will be so mild they will not even be detected. Secondly, people ARE taking precautions that will reduce transmission. Washing hands, hand sanitizer, avoiding crowds, cancelling travel, working from home, and staying home if they feel sick. Employers are taking precautions, cancelling meetings and travel, implementing social distancing, distributing hand sanitizer, directing employees to stay home if sick. Thirdly, Public Health Departments are or will be implementing policies like cancelling large public gatherings like sporting events and concerts, advising older people to avoid travel and public gatherings, closing schools, informing the public, and tracking outbreaks and clusters. If an outbreak gets bad enough, actions will be taken to contain it, up to quarantines if needed.

Laugh at these precautions if you like, but they do slow down the spread, and I can assure you that a LOT of people 60 and older are starting to pay attention. Those are the people that would overwhelm the system. As things get worse, you will see older folks getting much more serious and taking individual precautions. For those who ignore it because it's "just the flu", Darwinism will apply. Slowing the virus has been the only goal from the beginning. CDC and Public Health departments have stated this since January. A lot of people are screaming to "stop everything" to stop the virus, but that is not going to happen. The biggest casualties will likely be to our economy, and balancing the economic impact with healthcare and public health policy is the challenge.