You’re exactly right, and the overwhelming of our medical system is how this monster aims to win.
We simply don’t have enough equipment to deal with an onslaught of cases, the staff will get overworked, burnt out and infected.
And there’s a whole bunch of people in this country that do not understand this or don’t care.
We live in Eastern King County Washington along with half a million Chimese immigrants many who visit China frequently. Last year a high percentage of the 3 million people who came from China to the USA arrived at SeaTac. After the travel ban went into effect over 10,000 Chinese citizens in February diverted to Vancouver International a three hour drive away and continued pouring into Washington with essentially no health screening.
In Eastern King County our deaths and cases peaked about a week ago. The hospital intensive care units are already back to normal. Yet you would not know this from the breathless coverage by the news media or our governor who are determined to keep people alarmed and afraid. The primary reason I know this is because of my contacts on the fire department that I retired from and my wife's friends... she is a retired nurse.
The reason it is in decline here is not because of social distancing or anything else the government has done... it is because this virus was spreading around the area courtesy of he many people who had visited China and then visited or returned to their homes and jobs here before it was initially detected. It reached its peak in this immediate area and now is declining.
This thing is a threat, no doubt about that. It is just not as much of a threat in this country as it has been in some other places. I read a breathless story this morning about a hospital in New York that lost a dozen people in a day! My wife worked in skilled nursing homes that lost a dozen people in a day during a bad flu season... no reporting was done on that and the public never took any notice. We have faced much worse health crisis than this one in this country in the past.