CAN WE AUDIOPHILES DO OUR PART?

I can't believe I'm about to do this on an audiophile thread. I'm a sucker for punishment, it seems. Here we go. I'm an inpatient internal medicine physician in a badly hit hospital on the east coast. We had less than 20 covid positive or rule outs on the day the lock downs started I'm our area. We peaked at just shy of 200 in hospital(that is total admitted at that moment in time, not total positives. People die or get discharged. Hundreds died. Fortunately, hundreds more have been discharged)with respiratory failure with covid. The peak was about 20 days after the lockdowns started and have slowly but steadily declined after a plateau of about a week(average time to death or discharge is 16 to 18 days). This is pretty much right in line with how you would expect it to go in relation to a lock down and the timeline as it pertains to covid-19 illness. Numbers played out similarly in the surrounding hospitals. 

In hard hit areas, I'm not so sure the "cure" was worse than the disease. The hospitals here were certainly not empty. We opened up 2 extra wings. We turned the same day unit into another ICU. We were still full. We weren't laying people off. We had nurses from around the country flown in to help. Same goes for physicians. Similar stories in the surrounding hospitals.

I'm very happy that in many parts of the country...it didn't play out this way. That is, after all...the point, though. The entire point. I am amazed when I see people point at the current numbers and call out that the numbers aren't that bad. "See! It's not that bad!" Yea, it's not horrible. After taking drastic measures it's not horrible. 

I'm not going to argue that things were managed properly. I won't argue that the lockdowns don't have costs of their own(of course they do, no $#!?). I won't make a claim that I know how to handle this moving forward systemically. I will say that claiming that empty hospitals during a pandemic means mistakes were made or that we've clearly screwed up isn't really a great statement in isolation. Once again...that is the point. Stop the spread of the virus. Waiting until it gets a foothold in an area before you adjust means waiting until it's too late.

I get it. As a physician, not being able to get things done for your non covid patients in an area that isn't really affected by covid is probably a horrible feeling. It's not fair to those patients. They are paying a disproportionate cost. I don't pretend to have the answer for how we should manage that. I don't think the proper pushback against that is to claim none of this is a big deal, though.

I'm also not claiming that hospitals aren't hurting financially. They are hurting in the areas that have not been touched much by the virus. I know there are layoffs. The hospitals that are the most busy with covid are also getting crushed. Despite being completely full during April with 30 admissions held in the ED and people in the hallways...revenue was down something like 60 or 70%. All the low level but high volume stuff isn't there. I don't have the answers for how to help the hospitals, but, again, I don't think the answer is to claim that covid isn't a big deal(or that it's just a political thing). 

*This was typed in a rush on a phone, and I'm not going back to proofread. I'm sure there are plenty of typos etc. Please...forgive them. 

It all boils down to that timeless expression:
"I'm from the government and I'm here to help".

They admitted up front that many govt's seriously considered
letting the virus run its course. Let'em die was the cry. Grandma's not got many living years left anyway. I want the house!

Many countries did elect to do just that. Was that the wiser path?
We can tally that up in a few more months. Winners and losers.
The American way.

If you want get elected or re-elected bodies in the streets are not
the photo op you want. Can't have it. Better to mtg off the
kids future. 

Dems now offering $2k month to everyone. (who can vote)
What will Trump counter with? Stay tuned.

SNAFU

snarbut,

There were no typos etc. Quite an achievement, indeed.

All I know is, John Prine was infected by and died from exposure to someone already infected. Did that person not have on a mask? Should We The People be able, through our elected representatives, to require all people to wear masks while in public? Is to do so infringing on the rights of all? Does the individual’s rights and freedoms trump (no pun intended) the general population’s rights to be protected from irresponsible and potentially deadly behavior?

All perfectly rhetorical questions, and yet they have all been answered. Its just that you're not being told. Fake news isn't always lies. Its also selective reporting. 

Sweden never did lockdown or quarantine, and yet has as low or lower rates of infection and death as countries that did, including next-door neighbor Norway. So you can't say it was the climate. Ditto South Dakota, never any lockdowns at all. And you can't say its sparsely populated because the biggest cities there believe it or not have airports and their infection and mortality rates are as low or lower than equivalent US cites. 

There's a seriously grave issue here that deserves a lot more attention than its getting. Individual liberty, constitutionally protected liberty, is being trampled on a vast scale on the basis of fear stoked up by information that is heavily manipulated at best, and often flat out wrong. The problem with this is the damage being done to our public institutions, constitutional republic form of government, and the rule of law. 

Officer Anderson here has a pretty good handle on the situation. He's seen with his own eyes what can happen. Give the man a listen. Please.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=HXDTBl1FCWs&feature=emb_logo