Aus corona deaths.jpg
Not sure where the spike is that you're talking about.
As for other countries being worried about it much earlier than us. That's partly due to culture and partly due to the fact that the infection curve started much earlier in other countries than it did here. Which is why we have the luxury of being able to look at how other countries handled and are handling things.
As for the death count rising, that's sort of how exponential growth works. The count of people confirmed as infected has grown exponentially. Logically there would be a correlation between the amount of people infected and the amount of people having serious / life threatening cases. Additionally, the more people are infected, the more people that are at risk (elderly, health compromised etc) that are going to contract it.