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“Flatten the curve” is trendy but the graph everyone is sharing is just made up. It’s a nice visual aid but that’s all it is. What if we all shelter in place b
by twblalock 7y ago
“Flatten the curve” is trendy but the graph everyone is sharing is just made up. It’s a nice visual aid but that’s all it is.
What if we all shelter in place but hospitals end up overwhelmed anyway? That seems like a real possibility and it kind of makes the argument irrelevant.
If we didn’t “flatten the curve” enough to get the imaginary hump below the imaginary dotted line, then the benefits of “shelter in place” are going to end up being a lot less valuable.
- standardUser 7y ago"What if we all shelter in place but hospitals end up overwhelmed anyway? That seems like a real possibility and it kind of makes the argument irrelevant." There aren't just two modes: Hospitals OK and Hospitals Overwhelmed. The idea behind flattening the curve is to reduce the burden on the hospitals to whatever degree is possible. How is it "irrelevant" if a hospital is 200% over capacity versus 500% over capacity? The people who would die in the worst-case scenario but not in the "flattened" scenario would probably think it is extremely relevant.