This. There are barely any covid 19 patients yet hospitals are low on masks due to panic. Beds are still open and ventilators contrary to media claims are not currently on a shortage.
According to the CDC[1], you can contact your healthcare provider for the possibility of a test if (and only if) you are in close contact with someone with the disease or if you're in a community where there's ongoing spread. That's still a very limited subset of people who might have the disease.
There's very limited insight into who does or does not have the disease in the US.
[1]https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/symptoms-testing/t...
That said, we must manufacture medical equipment for pandemics locally or have a reserve like oil.
One of them said a few days ago masks and other supplies were stolen from a delivery truck that was broken into as the driver went in to start the delivery to the hospital.
My sense is there's a lot of leakiness in supply of various forms.
My experience is similar to those of others here: it's not really clear there's a substantial increased patient count at the hospitals here, test or not, but supplies are getting scarcer. Maybe other areas of the country or world are creating shortages.
Testing is a mess, but that's a different issue, one maybe more relevant to public health and policies in some ways.