Yea... They make it very obvious when they quit functioning correctly, with lights/alarms, etc. Such alarms are often classified as annoying by staff and disabled, and so the systems in place linger not functioning for longer than they should.
Comparing COVID-19 to the flu is valid, but using that comparison to minimize it's severity is mostly a farce, and it's unfortunate that it keeps getting repeated.
If you consider all of "the numbers" rather than selectively ignoring some metrics, they show that this is MORE infectious, MORE easily spread, and MORE serious to the "at risk" population than seasonal influenza. While the bulk of the population is not considered "at risk", this is really meaningless because that's the case with the seasonal flu as well. At minimum this should be treated as a second flu entirely, but one that is much more serious for the reasons I already touched on. It's additionally more serious because none of the population has been vaccinated against it, its multiple strains haven't been fully evaluated, availability of testing is still lagging behind demand, and it's been suggested that China has misrepresented it's data to under-represent the severity in their country.