I am seeing a lot of comments on this story complaining that it is anecdotal or that New York is extraordinary and thus this is implicitly less important to peo

I am seeing a lot of comments on this story complaining that it is anecdotal or that New York is extraordinary and thus this is implicitly less important to people outside New York. I live in the city of New York and I think it's important that everyone nationally absorb what is happening right now and the "anecdotes" are important. By anecdotes, I mean, in particular the New York Times story and video published last night about Elmhurst Hospital in Queens (a very hard hit borough)(https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/25/nyregion/nyc-coronavirus-hospitals.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/25/nyregion/nyc-coronavirus-...). People are dying of Covid at this hospital in chairs or on floors ("Some have died inside the emergency room while waiting for a bed"). People are dying without their loved ones allowed or able to be present (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/24/opinion/coronavirus-hospital-visits.html?searchResultPosition=1 https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/24/opinion/coronavirus-hospi...) (<--link is about Boston but Elmurst story above makes clear this is happening in NYC too, very much so). In his briefing yesterday the governor of New York discussed people sharing venilators (already happening per the Elmurst story) and bringing back retired doctors (horrifying given the risk to the old -- in China older working doctors were often kept off Covid wards). The morgues are filling up and they are building outfoor refrigerators to hold the bodies (this is in the Elmhurst story). People with babies due are giving birth alone without their partners (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/24/parenting/coronavirus-labor-birth.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/24/parenting/coronavirus-lab...). People (including one in Elmhurst story with fever) are waiting multiple days outdoors (including rain) for a test and being turned away day after day after waiting all day. Why talk about this? Is it for clickbait? To be dramatic? Because we're certain the NYC scale problems will spread to less dense areas? No. It is because many many people in this country are continuing to not take this situation seriously. Many people (including relatives of mine on Facebook) think this is completely overblow, like the flu, not worth keeping people at home for given economic cost. Many of these people have already ignored the hard evidence, the numbers, the consequences. Talking about terrible things that are starting to happen -- "anecdotes" -- may help shake some of these people out of their denial. And if they are prepared, and IF anything approaching NYC scale problems happens in their area, there is a better chance they will help rather than hinder efforts to flatten the curve. Please don't dismiss what is happening here as anecdote or irrelevant. Believe me, I'm no better than you, I did this too, when this was "just" in Wuhan, or "just" in China, or "just" in Italy. I took a trip at the end of February in the U.S. on an airplane. I look back -- what was I thinking?! Now I'm locked in my apartment going on three weeks. My wife had a fever for 6 hours a little over a week ago, she's been coughing. Probably we're ok. But it's in the back of your head: What if I get sick, and she gets worse, who will take care of our kids? What if they close the stores and we can't get groceries? I wish some of the anecdotes had reached me earlier. I hope some of these anecdotes reach others.