This is really only a step above anecdote in terms of sample size, but I know from nurses and doctors at all the nearby hospitals that they reached their capaci

This is really only a step above anecdote in terms of sample size, but I know from nurses and doctors at all the nearby hospitals that they reached their capacity for respiratory / ICU cases (which is exceptionally unusual for them) right when the outbreak was supposed to be flaring up here (and what I mean by that is that there was the outbreak in China, then it was reported breaking out in other countries, then it was reported breaking out in Seattle, NY, and the Bay Area, then it was reported breaking out in our state capital and tourist hotspots, and then it broke out here, all in pretty regular succession). Now, maybe more people went to the hospital precisely because that sequence of reporting led them to think it was serious when they may not have before, so the timing was a self-fulfilling prophecy. Ultimately, we'll really know so little for certain until we've had ubiquitous testing and a lot more time to study this, and the best we can do until then is extrapolate & theorize from what little data we do have. But the "weird cold" stories I've heard from February and even as far back in November just don't seem consistent with what pneumonia patients hospitals have seen - because that's how this was initially noticed as being unusual in Wuhan.