China has a localized crisis and could move surplus doctors and nurses from other places (they also have a system of government that lets them do that without political and partisan friction, which is bad for lots of reasons but useful for this specific situation.)
While California is worse off, the US has a national problem and no region to ship surplus from, even leaving aside the political problems which would add friction if the capacity existed.
China was able to get a clamp down by becoming more authoritarian and literally wielding doors shut of people suspected of COVID19.
The hospital growth thing is a red herring. Gaining +2000 hospital beds (or 20% growth for a lot of areas) means jack diddly squat against a Virus that replicates into the millions.
Its far easier to stay home for Thanksgiving and cut down on the spread, rather than grow hospitals. But of course, we're growing hospitals where we can (moving Navy Hospital Ships, hiring student nurses before they graduate, etc. etc.) But the USA already had a nurse shortage BEFORE COVID19 came around.
There comes a point where there's no point building Hospital beds: we simply don't have enough nurses / doctors in this country to staff them. Even if we include student nurses / doctors.
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In either case: China has the right idea. You stop the spread before it becomes a million cases. You can't just magically grow hospitals and create expert nurses out of thin air.
Free Liberal countries like New Zealand got to stop the exponential growth because their society was more unified and rational about things. Authoritarian wasn't necessary, but its clearly a good cudgel to use in this situation.
