Unfortunately, it will be a very small signal relative to the total number of respiratory illnesses at this time of year. Moreover, there's often a multi-week l

Unfortunately, it will be a very small signal relative to the total number of respiratory illnesses at this time of year. Moreover, there's often a multi-week lag-time between it spreading and getting cases that get severe enough for hospitalization. Until there's a critical mass of enough infected to get sufficient number of patients with ARDS (like the woman at the UC Davis Medical Center), it may be hard to notice. The problem is, once it's noticed through this method, it's likely spread to a significant number of people. This is what happened in Northern Italy and Iran (and to some extent in Wuhan as well).