https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/flattening-the-covid-19-curves/

What is the best public policy to counter the health risk from the Coronavirus, COVID-19? This is the question on everyone’s mind.

It is wise to try and learn from the current situation in China, where the rate of COVID-19 infections was extinguished as a result of a lockdown, and Italy, where hospitals are full and doctors have to make life-death decisions about patients because there are not enough beds to treat everyone in need. The mortality fraction of infected people appears to be higher by an order of magnitude when hospitals are overcrowded, so suppressing the rate of new infections serves the important purpose of allowing those in need to be treated.