5 ms·
Here's what it comes down to then; Which option is cheaper: 1. Spend money to temporarily increase hospital beds and ventilator capacity, but keep everything e
by jbob2000 7y ago
Here's what it comes down to then; Which option is cheaper:
1. Spend money to temporarily increase hospital beds and ventilator capacity, but keep everything else running normally, or;
2. Shutdown everything to slow the spread so that we don't need to increase bed and ventilator capacity.
I'm tempted to say that adding bed and ventilator capacity is cheaper. I don't think that option costs trillions of dollars, like option 2 does.
- greedo 7y agoThe first assumes that increasing vents, ECMOs, and hospital beds is all that's needed. You'd still need trained staff to man them. Staff that is extremely vulnerable to this disease. Also, if you don't shut things down, you'll overwhelm the system, even if you were able to double the number of beds...
- jbob2000 7y agoDo those things cost trillions of dollars? I don't think so. Each country could probably commit a couple hundred million to this and be better off than a complete shutdown.
- greedo 7y agoIn a world with perfect planning, yes it would have made more sense for us to expand our healthcare so that we could withstand something like this. But we didn't. We made our bed, and we have to use what we have in hand. We can't create enough bed space, vents, ECMOs, in the next 6 months. We can't train enough doctors, nurses, etc in 6 months. So we play the hand we're dealt, and choose a mitigation strategy that doesn't result in 70M worldwide fatalities (6M in the US).
- jbob2000 7y agoWhy 6 months? How much money does it take to do it in 1 month? Is that amount of money less than trillions of dollars?
- cayleyh 7y agoIt's not a cost issue. It's supply & capacity issue. You cannot create instant supply immediately, even with a trillion dollars.
- svanderbleek 7y agoLower requirements by having virus treatment staff with rapid specialized training
- greedo 7y agoIt usually takes a doctor between 7-10 years to get licensed. Sure you can change requirements, but do you want someone just out of med school working in ICU without adequate supervision, making complex assessments and treatments? The pipeline for both nurses and doctors is just severely constrained.
- steve_adams_86 7y agoBut what if those medical resources aren't available yet? What if we need to wait weeks or months for them, no matter how much money we have to spend? If the entire world needs these things all at once, there is going to be a shortage (and there is). That's a death sentence for a lot of people, an overwhelmed medical system, and perhaps a runaway burden on the health system that no amount of dollars can catch up with. I think that's a large part of why we're shutting down. If this thing got away from us (we can't possibly know yet), a lack of isolation would mean every place that didn't isolate would essentially have an Italy situation on their hands. That's an insane risk to take.
- rasz 7y agoCremona, Italy - not a single patient survived ventilation/ecmo to date https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfkbv_WQtn0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfkbv_WQtn0
- _bxg1 7y agoThe disease spreads exponentially, not linearly. Bed increases (and staff, buildings, ventilators...) would have to also be exponential to meet it head-on.
- dragonwriter 7y agoIt's not either/or, it's essential to do both shutdowns with enforced social distancing and build capacity, the first to buy time for the second.