The fact it was not overwhelmed speaks to the sucess of the government policy at the time. Spain and Italy were overwhelmed. And I do consider their healthcare superior to ours.
Was Italy overwhelmed or was it just Lombardy, or part of Lombardy, ie Bergamo? Lombardy was the part of Europe which got hit first and worked as a warning to everywhere else so other places had time to adapt.
I believe that Madrid also was hit earlier than we were too which is where we saw people lying on the floor, it was not the whole of Spain which was overwhelmed.
Not seen anyone say this but i think that in the UK we have been very lucky. London is a city where there are always lots of businesspeople and tourists from around the world walking around, going out to bars etc and my local tube is absolutely rammed with people for over an hour in the morning. As i have mentioned before, on my normal trip into work there may be over 10 people within 2 metres of me for 10-20 minutes. Instead of Lombardy getting hit first it could easily have been the whole of London.
I know that everyone will start shouting about different methods of gathering stats but FWIW a comparison of different urban areas in the tweet below.