> low density regions with sufficient hospital capacity

These regions were already struggling with hospital capacity before the virus hit.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/rural-hospital-closings...

> More than 100 rural hospitals have closed in the United States since 2010 and another 430 are at risk of closing, which a new study says could have life-or-death implications for rural communities.

> University of Washington researchers examined 92 rural hospital closings in California from 1995 to 2011. They found that while the closings of urban hospitals had no impact on their surrounding communities, rural closings caused their populations — which have limited access to health care and other services — to see mortality rates rise 5.9 percent.

There is a limited amount of time we can be on a lockdown. For example, in Massachusetts where all non essential business are shut down, pretty much all routine medical care has stopped. The major safety net hospital in Boston is laying off 10% of the workforce because they are not seeing routine patients). So the time in lockdown needs to be spent wisely, otherwise we will create more health problems than we solve. 8-9 million people a year die from cardiovascular disease in the US. If that rises by just 5%, we will have made things a lot worse

Agreed. Another example: I have a dental abscess I can't get treated because all dentists have shut down at least into May. In my case it can probably wait, but some people's dental issues will lead to acute complications here and now, and also bad dental health can lead to heart problems in the long term, thus again worrying in terms of cardiovascular disease.

I'm not sure why shutdown prevents routine patients though? At least, in my country anyone needing to go see a doctor is exempt from the lockdown.

Doctors and dentists routinely catch colds and flus from their patients. In most countries they are not working behind a perspex face shield (and as you know, there is now a shortage of such safety equipment). Consequently, they could easily catch coronavirus during this lockdown and spread it, or even perish from it.