Wasn't the purpose of closing the economy to flatten the curve?

We were originally told that the reasoning behind closing down businesses, schools, and other restrictions were for the purpose of flattening the curve so that our hospitals would be become overwhelmed or run out of needed equipment. We were told the shutdown was to slow down the rate of infections so not everyone got sick at once. But now that the curve is flattened, hospitals are not overwhelmed and haven't been, many states are staying shutdown for several more weeks or month(s). So has the reason changed? Seems now some expect us to stay closed until the virus is gone or a vaccine is ready which can be over a year. Why has the narrative changed for some?

 

Some states are going to slowly start reopening. Each State is different and needs to consider the infection density and the potential to reignite an uncontrolled explosion of infections again.

We didn't know how well the isolation measures would work. They have worked very well. Now we need to figure out the best way to ease back into life. Some things wont return to normal for a long time, most notably, schools, concerts, sporting events, and other major gatherings.

We are also waiting on test kits to identify if someone is contagious. That is a major bottleneck. We need tens of millions of test kits for ongoing testing as people begin to integrate. We also need the antibody tests.

 

Also, some States haven't even hit their peak yet. For example, In Illinois things are still getting worse.

And some of this is driven by businesses. Meat packing plants have been closing due to mass infections in the their work force. I've gone through this with a customer of mine as well [a major major company]. They shut down to allow the plants to decontaminate naturally rather than trying to disinfect millions and millions of square feet of industrial sites.

Once you have an infected plant, you have to clean it one way or the other. You can't just allow people to continue to pass the infection to each other. The easiest way to clean it is to simply shut down for two weeks. Then you have to test each employee as they return to work - every day!

 

You are correct. Flattening the curve was the stated reason; but the political Left LIVES for controling the lives of the citizens of this nation and they feel it in their bones that they will never be handed a better opportunity than this to ram their politics and ideology sideways down the gagging throat of this nation, and so now they are moving the goal post to, "We will remain contained as a nation until mathematically there is no longer a chance of anyone contracting a new case of Corona Virus, period." That is not their wording, but that is very much their intent. MAKE the citizens utterly dependent on the fiscal benevolence and control of government and MAKE the leftist dream of a Utopia occur by hook or by crook.

Of course they are dreaming of a Star Trek Utopia rather then the Venezuala one that they would in fact create . . . because none of them really know what the hell they are doing.

 

Politicians have walked into a horned dilemma of their own making. It's been a false dichotomy from the beginning. By starting on this path it has locked them into a real political dilemma.

Moving the goal posts from "stretching the impact on healthcare infrastructure over time", which has been over accomplished, to "no Covid-19 deaths are acceptable" has created a metric wherein there's a fear that any deaths after relaxing stay at home, essential work orders will be seen as caused by choosing money at the expense of lives. This scares the hell out of politicians and the truly immoral will chose their political life over all others by denying they were wrong from the beginning.

 

Exactly, yes you just stated what we already know, but then that means we didn't shutdown for the purpose of not overwhelming the hospitals since that never happened anyway. If you look at the charts of curves, it's possible all we did was slow it down and extend the pandemic.

 

~ Well what better opportunity for authoritarian mayors & governors to act like Hitler and order everyone around ? A taste of big government Marxist "socialism" .
Remember the politicians still get paid ...

 

It didn't happen BECAUSE people cooperated in isolating themselves. And some areas were like war zones. Haven't you seen any of the videos posted by ER doctors and nurses?

We did extend it by saving 2 million lives. Are you volunteering to die?

Now we need the ability to keep the infected people isolated while allowing everyone else to go back to work. For that we need fast test kits. In principle you can stop this simply by isolating everyone who is infected for a few weeks. But we need to know who they are.

The use of masks and good practices can also help to keep this from exploding again.

 

Oh my gosh. Such drama queens!!! This is temporary.

 

Perfctly stated and perfectly accurate. I nominate this for post of the week.

 

Where were these hospitals that were like war zones? NYC? What about the rest of the country?

The idea that 2 million were going to die is based on very inaccurate and overblown models. Those models have been failures since the beginning.

Yes, I know the masks and things like hand washing are good practices, and I intend of following those, so what's your point with that?

 

It's funny how someone who thinks we should stay hiding in our basement indefinitely is calling someone else a drama queen.

 

"Now we need the ability to keep the infected people isolated while allowing everyone else to go back to work."

We've had that ability from the outset but focus was misplaced on lock down of the general population over assiduously protecting the at risk cohort.

The medical community is responsible for and in physical control of the majority of those at risk of death and those that have died from Covid-19. The medical community failed. FAILED, writ large.

With $2Trillion we could have made every nursing home and elder care congregate setting in the country a level 4 bio containment facility. Not only didn't government and the medical community act to protect these communities and others at risk, they through sloppy protocol and lack of professional focus on reality, they became the direct link, the viral vector that lead to the overwhelming Covid-19 deaths to date.

I'm done listening to Health Care Professionals. Until they come clean and accept responsibility for their colossal failure, through inaction and continued reliance on failed model projections, they have nothing but my derision.

This isn't hindsight. On this very forum and in comments and letters to local papers and government officials I pointed out the problem almost two months ago.

Some folks need to be jailed for their gross malfeasance and incompetence.

I'm done being nice on this issue.

Labour

 

I think you're caught in a fast food state of mind. Three or four days of a flattening curve is hardly reason to claim victory.
Cautious re-opening to avoid new spikes in outbreaks is required. At this point, all we need is a couple of outbreaks like
the one that hit the meat processing plant to head into round two - something that needs to be avoided.

 

Hospitals did get overwhelmed. It just wasn't catastrophic, and they were able to get a handle on it. But that was New York. What about hospitals in New Orleans if we let our guard down? Detroit? L.A.? Chicago? Tampa Bay? Who knows. It's too risky.

Also, the mortality rate of the group we've identified (600,000 active cases) is 5% now, and climbing. Even if we don't have to "flatten the curve" for hospitals, if we relaxed the rules, that 600,000 could easily turn into 6,000,000 cases, with the same 5% mortality (300,000 deaths). That might eventually happen anyway, but if we "flatten the curve", it gives us time to develop a treatment so we can maybe cut the mortality down.

But to your point, what's going on in the economy is devastating and unsustainable. Germany is cautiously letting it's guard down and their mortality rate is similar to ours. Maybe they'll show the way with their typical Prussian efficiency.

Here's a question for you: suppose we find that we've undercounted by a lot and there are really 30 million people who have this/have had it and to get to herd immunity would cost us, say, 200,000 lives. Would you open things up?

 

Two weeks??? I thought the virus couldn't live longer than 3 days on anything.

 

So you'll stick to your guns and refuse any care in the future from any doctor or nurse because they're such evil people.

 

I think NY did well, as they had just enough cases to be below the level

the states with almost no cases did not benefit from this shutdown unless a cure\treatment\vaccine is right around the corner


most of these states citizens are still in the same boat as before the shutdown as they did not gain any immunity

the good news is there is some potential treatments and vaccine that are close, but if that falls through, the 2nd wave could come when we reopen

 

Is Mike Dewine part of the "political left"? Ohio was one of the first to shut it's school system down. Is India part of the "political left"? China? Iran? Almost all countries around the world have closed up shop. It has nothing to do with politics, of course, and everything to do with this virus.

 

Fair question, but I do think that we probably do/did have that many infected and studies are starting to show this. However, this far into it, many of those asymptomatic people are no longer infected or contagious. That many people will not all have it at once, you'll have some infected as others "recover" (not really recover if you never knew you had it and had no symptoms) so to think that would cost 200,000 lives in not accurate. But to ask if it's worth more lives to get herd immunity. I'd have to answer yes.

 

New normal.

 

If we had the ability to keep infected people isolated, we wouldn't be losing 2,000 people a day. Covid has been the leading cause of death for the past week now (or tied with heart disease). Can you imagine what that would be like if we relaxed things right now?

And we've got 40 million people over 65. You going to isolate all of them from the rest of us? How's that going to work? They stay in the attic during the family dinner?

 

Problem is that some people are retesting positive after having had the disease, so we are not entirely sure that herd immunity
is the probably outcome. Too many unknowns just yet.

 

We can't get a freaking mask or forced air filtered PAPR hoody for those high risk, or would be high risk at work. Ever had someone drip puss in your face at work? I have. Can't get a mask or even shop for it on Amazon because of restrictions.

Get us all protective gear, then you can open the world without any complaint from me.

 

Don't be obtuse. Policy = Upper management. However, silence, by doctors especially, over their continued loss of autonomy within the Health Care Community is part of the problem. Hospitalists, employees of the hospital, not a patients individual practitioner control the administration of care. A private practice MD that has hospital privileges is long gone. The loss of that critical external voice is the problem.

Labour