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[entremet]

I think there's little reason to expect we will have health care system overload. Consider this:

- The first wave came with no one social distancing, no one wearing masks, no one thinking this would become a big deal at all -- people went to sporting events, parades, big gatherings, etc. etc. as if nothing had changed. All signs point to this virus having been with us since December or January and definitely by way of Europe by February, well before lockdowns began here. The virus had ample time to spread through the population and infect people.

- The hospitals were poorly prepared. PPE was in short supply. Manufacturing capacity was not there. Testing capabilities were nonexistent.

- Even with horrible preparations and poor public understanding, the first wave did *not* cripple our health care system. Only New York became close to being overwhelmed, but it still admirably met the challenge.

Any second wave as a result from cautious and gradual reopening will be much smaller, and we will be much better prepared. There's no reason to think our health care system would be overloaded.

I'm just saying that's the reason there's been an aggressive response. It's not just about people dying alone. It's why when people mention stuff like car accidents I want to punch the screen. Not comparable at all.

 

[Moogle11]

If you're going to claim that something is "too fast," then you need to have a clear picture of what "just right" is that you can communicate.

To chime in, I think the best we can do is what I posted earlier. Do it in phases and start in the least populated areas where the outbreak will be smallest if it doesn't work. If that goes well, then expand into moderately populated areas (exurbs), then suburbs, then metro areas (whenever their current cases are low enough that hospitals could handle an uptick).

Things can't stay this shutdown much longer, but we also can't open things up too fast and lead to a huge breakout and make all this economic sacrifice for naught. Not to mention it just being a basic good to want to minimize loss of life as much as we can while preventing a full on, long term economic depression.

 

[Deleted member 17706]

I'm just saying that's the reason there's been an aggressive response. It's not just about people dying.

Oh, I understand that. We've achieved our goal of not overwhelming the health care system and now we're ready to deal with it. New York got hit the worst and they have tons of empty beds. Health care system overload is not a big concern anymore, especially considering that any second or third wave of cases will be much smaller than the first. The biggest single spike of cases is behind us.

 

[Moogle11]

Oh, I understand that. We've achieved our goal of not overwhelming the health care system and now we're ready to deal with it. New York got hit the worst and they have tons of empty beds. Health care system overload is not a big concern anymore, especially considering that any second or third wave of cases will be much smaller than the first. The biggest single spike of cases is behind us.

I do hope that's the case--and it would be with a gradual reopening over the summer. It may not be in the fall/winter if things are fully reopeoned by then and it comes back with a vengeance then. Remember that the Spanish Flu killed the vast majority of people during it's second wave in fall/winter after the initial spring outbreak.

It's going to take a lot of testing to make sure we can shut down things again early if it does come back in great number (or with more lethality if it mutates) in fall/winter. There's not way we can stay shut down that long. Best we can do is a phased re-opening and focus on building up a huge supply of tests and PPE to be ready in fall/winter if we get slammed worse than we did this first wave.