Everyone always seems to forget about this. According to the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act[0], any hospital that accepts Medicare must "provide an appropriate medical screening examination (MSE) to anyone seeking treatment for a medical condition, regardless of citizenship, legal status, or ability to pay." And if it's determined that treatment is required, or the patient's health may be in serious jeopardy, the hospital is required to treat them until they're stable.
In other words, if you show up at the ER, they're required to run tests to see if you have a life-threatening condition. If you do, they're required to treat you until you're stable.
Everyone makes it out like US hospitals will simply turn people away at the door; in fact, they can't (assuming they accept Medicare, which most do). They'll at least find out your status, and treat if necessary.
If you've ever been in an ER waiting room, you've seen this posted.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Medical_Treatment_an...
In place and redeployable infrastructure.
What you'd want from a government is to have a surplus of portable infrastructure able to be deployed in an emergency, but that's the CDC and FEMA.
And what of that when the President doesn’t like the numbers he sees, stokes the many conspiracists among his supporters with distortions and outright falsehoods, and that segment of (likely well-armed) population that think the “deep state” is executing a coup, start resisting?
More people going to a doctor because they aren't scared of the bills means more people being properly tested, properly quarantined, contact-traced, and most importantly properly reported and reflected in the statistics, leading to better countermeasures and responses.
It's also not clear what advantage "public healthcare" is supposed to have in this context. The CDC has the authority to test and quarantine people. For the majority of people infected the "treatment" is to stay at home and recover. A minority of people will require hospitalization, but most of those people will have health insurance. The vast majority of those requiring hospitalization will be elderly and eligible for Medicare. The large majority of the remaining minority of a minority will have private insurance. And the remaining minority of a minority of a minority who require hospitalization, aren't eligible for Medicare and don't have private insurance will presumably still get treatment and then have a bad day when the bill comes, which is a financial problem rather than a medical one.