Both are true but for that 5% for whom it is serious it’s a lot when you take it as a percentage of 70,000,000 people. Roughly 350,000 in serious life threatening condition. Our intensive care can not cope with that number at once. Hence delay as in flatten the peak and stretch it out. Otherwise hospitals are overwhelmed and can’t even assess people let alone put them on oxygen etc. They would have to decide who gets help (who has the best chance of survival given resources) and who is left to die (or recover by themselves). It will be like war zone triage.
All of which is currently happening in Italy - according to reports. Hence the need to spread the peak