So lots of people get the flu, but few people die from it. Few people get SARS/MERS, but they're much more likely to die. There are a lot of reasons for that.

So lots of people get the flu, but few people die from it. Few people get SARS/MERS, but they're much more likely to die. There are a lot of reasons for that. And yes, Washington State can effectively respond to CoV incidents - contact tracing, which is what you need to get people into isolation, is very labor intensive, and probably going on right now. State health departments help support hospitals in doing infection control work (to prevent within hospital transmission) and a lot of coordinating.