2 is obviously a real concern, where the cases spiked the hospitals ran into serious trouble - and they will spike if left unchecked. Also, consider that they

2 is obviously a real concern, where the cases spiked the hospitals ran into serious trouble - and they will spike if left unchecked. Also, consider that they have to mostly shut down the rest of the hospital due to staffing issues - but also the highly infectious nature of COVID. Left unchecked, every hospital will hit their limits quickly. That'a a distinguishing characteristic of this one. Edit: here is what the curve looks like without suppression measures in place. In NYC they came essentially to capacity very quickly. Imagine if that curve had of kept going, it would have been very bad. It's the same R0 everywhere, the 'effective R' will come down to the difference being the age and relative health of the population, and of course other suppressive measures being taken. [1] https://forward.ny.gov/daily-hospitalization-summary-region https://forward.ny.gov/daily-hospitalization-summary-region [2] https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data.page https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data.page