It's hard to say what the experience very early on means in the bigger picture. We knew basically nothing about the virus. There were stories out of NYC of doctors venting basically every COVID patient who walked in the door early on. A lot has changed since then. If hospitals are STILL getting "overwhelmed" now that means they did not take the proper precautions to prepare and instead tried to cut corners and downsize because they were losing money when there were no patients. Now they are scrambling with a huge influx of delayed elective procedures, RSV, and COVID. That means they are run by penny-pinching morons, not that the virus is outrageously severe in that locale. People keep making this mistake when looking at the hospital data and the media pumps it up because fear sells.