@n80: I’ve already expressed that delayed care is an issue. A significant issue. I am not downplaying it. I don’t pretend to have the answers. I will not advocate any particular plan with steadfast conviction because I don’t have the answers. I’ll give the same response, again, about the empty hospitals. It’s a real and serious problem. People will die from the virus and people will die from the response to the virus in various numbers with any plan that is implemented. If you claim, again, that I don’t think that the negative effects of having empty hospitals is another issue, I’ll know we aren’t having a good faith discussion. I don’t know what the proper balance is. I am not downplaying it. What I can tell you from first hand experience, and plenty of second hand experience(my fiancee is a pulm/crit physician at a another larger hospital and between the two of us we have a reasonably large network of physicians to collect regional information) is that by the time you see the tip of the iceberg, assuming you haven’t been taking aggressive local measures, in many cases you are going to find out you’ve already lost. You’re going to have a really bad few months even if you lock everything down completely at that point.
It seemed pretty obvious from the beginning that any adequate response in regards to the virus would later be met with significant push back as people made claims like: "See! The numbers aren’t even that bad!" Right, they aren’t that bad in the setting of dramatic measures taken to stop the further spread of the virus. That is not the same as saying they never would have been that bad. I suppose this is my biggest point. Don’t use the fact that things didn’t explode in the setting of drastic measures being taken to downplay the seriousness of the situation.
Btw, the response to the pandemic is not central and general. There are guidelines and some central programs etc, but the states are the ones imposing the shelter in place orders etc. Did I miss something? Seriously, if I did let me know. Maybe you mean central in terms of California state making a "central" decision? That’s not really the proper terminology in this context, but ok. Maybe that means California is too big? It is bigger and more heavily population that most countries. Sure. I don’t know. I’m not very knowledgeable about California. For the record, I agree we need to worry about erosion of liberty. We always do. It’s a very real and obvious concern. That concern needs to be discussed in the setting of proper information, though. This is addressed more generally(as in not really at you N80, others are making the next claim I’m about to address), but this is not the flu. This is significantly more deadly and causes significantly more morbidity. True, we don’t know EXACTLY how deadly yet...but I’ve never seen a relatively healthy sub 40 year old(zero or one well controlled comorbidity) die of hypoxic respiratory failure. I’ve seen more than a few already in that group die from Covid-19 pnuemonia. I’ve seen a lot more of them stuck in the hospital for weeks or even more than a month on varying levels of oxygen support. Many go home on home oxygen(at least they did, it takes like a week to get it now because supply is low). Never seen that with the flu. It’s not the flu. I’ve never seen refrigerator trucks behind the hospital because the morgue is full during flu season. At least one hospital I know of in the area needed a second truck because the first was full.
I’m done though. I can’t waste any more of my day off on this. Have fun all. Enjoy your music. Stay safe(whatever that means to you). For those of you hurting with businesses. I wish you the best of luck. I’m sorry you have to go through this. I hope we can get everyone back to work as soon as possible in an intelligent way. My vote would be for reliable antibody testing(we just need to work on that reliable part first), but I’m open to whatever works.
