The general "board room" histogram of deaths per day is the knee-jerk reaction of what we all look at, but what you really want to look at is the disease potential and spread.

Ro = Transmission, different countries/states have a different Ro based on weather, rural vs urban.
Natural Immunity
Case Fataliy rate

That is what South Korea focused on, and BOOM, they tested and solved the problem before it got real. tracking total deaths is necessary long term, but in terms of preparedness you want to look at very different variable set.

Go look at Worldometers own website and they explain that you want to focus on those numbers, but sadly everyone just looks at deaths per day as their "data source".