Historically, outbreaks from major diseases follow a near-perfect exponential curve. At the moment, this outbreak is growing by an exponential factor averaging between 1.15 and 1.35. That translates to every 16 days recording 10 times the amount of new cases. That means if we see 46k infected today, a month from now is showing that it will be 4.6 million. Even with a 1% mortality rate, that goes back to 46k fatalities. That is nontrivial. I don't know how many hospital bets are available but I think it is less than 4.6M.

Anyways, that's why it is different than other sicknesses.