I'm pretty sure I mentioned this before...
I live about 1/2 way between Dallas & Tyler TX, pretty rural area. Tyler's a fair sized city (~100k), Rockwall's (~41k) near Dallas, Kaufmann's (~6.7k) close to Dallas too & is the county seat.
Anyway, a couple years ago, during the normal flu season, my appendix burst. My normal hospital (Mother Frances) is in Tyler and the ambulance was based out of that hospital. The ambulance crew was told to take me to another hospital since Mother Frances was full-up with flu cases. OK, drove about 45 min in the opposite direction to Kaufman, nope, they're full-up with flu patients too. Drove another 45 min or so to Rockwall - they were about to turn me away for the same reason when one of their surgeons saw me on the gurney & got in on the discussion.
Fortunately, I was in the OR in less than 30 minutes.
So, no, it doesn't take a lot to overwhelm our current hospitals.
Note: All travel times are approximate - I really wasn't paying a whole lot of attention to the time.