My memory from the time of the initial lockdowns in the US was that we saw hospitals in other countries being overwhelmed, that scared the crap out of our public health experts, and that drove our response. I don’t know how close any areas in the US eventually came to that scenario.

In some ways this is similar to the response to the issues around Y2K. Did we need to spend as much as we did on that? We don’t have an alternate universe to compare with.