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They're not mutually exclusive. It could be (is likely) that the problem never was as bad to begin with and that it was lessened by flattening the curve. Even E

They're not mutually exclusive. It could be (is likely) that the problem never was as bad to begin with and that it was lessened by flattening the curve. Even ERs have been seeing only 40-50% of normal patient numbers and have been cutting staff and shifts. You don't see that except for the fact that experts assumed and/or modeled very very wrong. And that the population has been scared to the unhealthy extent such that they think the virus risk is worse than not seeking treatment for heart attacks and strokes. There's much we have yet to learn about this thing. We might not figure it out satisfactorily for years. Remember zika? And it's certainly less severe among those infected than was predicted (at least per capita infections, if not overall). As long as people/ officials/ experts deny that, (or exclusively credit flattening the curve, or fail to admit how wrong they were, where appropriate) don't expect the public to take fear-based guidance from the same sources as credible.

deleted 6y ago
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enraged_camel 6y ago
>> It could be (is likely) that the problem never was as bad to begin with As of today the USA has 75,000+ dead and counting. That is pretty fucking bad.
- beerandt 6y ago
  I agree that it's pretty bad. You're sort of making my point, though. People forcing the issue to be binned into either a "bad" or "not bad". No one's saying it's not bad. At least I'm not. It's just a lot less bad than what we were told 3 months ago. Yet very few seem willing to admit that, because (I'm guessing) they think it might mean losing some amount of fear based leverage or control. Or don't want to give people false confidence to disregard rules. Or whatever the motivation. And the public in general is perceptive of that, especially the ones less inclined to blindly trust government. When the original concern was overcrowding hospitals, and the new risk is ERs closing or laying off staff from under-use, the nature and magnitude of the healthcare infrastructure risk has completely changed. Which means either: 1) we were wrong and it isn't as bad as we thought, or 2) that we've been so successful in flattening the curve (and scaring people from going out, including to the hospital for critical treatment), that we've overshot our goal to the point of doing more damage than good. And that's strictly looking at healthcare, before even taking into account economic considerations beyond the hospitals being able to stay open.
  - enraged_camel 6y ago
    >> No one's saying it's not bad. At least I'm not. It's just a lot less bad than what we were told 3 months ago. It's a lot less bad than it was estimated 3 months ago because most states understood the severity of the situation and hunkered down as much as they could. >> that we've been so successful in flattening the curve (and scaring people from going out, including to the hospital for critical treatment), that we've overshot our goal to the point of doing more damage than good Our "deaths per day" number averages 2000. I don't know how this can be remotely perceived as some sort of massive success other than relative to the original estimates that were based on doing nothing.
    - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
      Stopping people from getting the virus was, unfortunately, not the goal. American epidemiologists don't and didn't believe that's something we can achieve in the short term.
      - beerandt 6y ago
        Yes- I was speaking specifically to the goal of not overwhelming the healthcare system. Unfortunately, right now we're saving it from gluttony only to have it starve.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
  - lastres0rt 6y ago
    3) We were wrong about the kinds of people who were going to catch this (e.g. poor folks, people of color, people in nursing homes, prisoners, people who work jobs they can't freely leave in meatpacking plants), who while they'll fill up a coffin just the same as anybody... ...are also all groups less likely to go to a hospital / ER even in GOOD times, and even when they do, tend to be treated like crap (e.g. assumed to be "drug-seeking", have their pain dismissed, often end up overlooked in triage, etc.) This is the same old haves vs. have-nots story we've been telling, taken to a while new level -- if you're wealthy enough to be able to work from home, you've likely just been hunkering down and wondering what all the fuss is about. It's not about fear-based leverage, it's about one group of people refusing to admit they're too insulated from the rest of society to see that the lower rungs that keep everything running are getting massacred.

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enraged_camel 6y ago

>> It could be (is likely) that the problem never was as bad to begin with As of today the USA has 75,000+ dead and counting. That is pretty fucking bad.

beerandt 6y ago
I agree that it's pretty bad. You're sort of making my point, though. People forcing the issue to be binned into either a "bad" or "not bad". No one's saying it's not bad. At least I'm not. It's just a lot less bad than what we were told 3 months ago. Yet very few seem willing to admit that, because (I'm guessing) they think it might mean losing some amount of fear based leverage or control. Or don't want to give people false confidence to disregard rules. Or whatever the motivation. And the public in general is perceptive of that, especially the ones less inclined to blindly trust government. When the original concern was overcrowding hospitals, and the new risk is ERs closing or laying off staff from under-use, the nature and magnitude of the healthcare infrastructure risk has completely changed. Which means either: 1) we were wrong and it isn't as bad as we thought, or 2) that we've been so successful in flattening the curve (and scaring people from going out, including to the hospital for critical treatment), that we've overshot our goal to the point of doing more damage than good. And that's strictly looking at healthcare, before even taking into account economic considerations beyond the hospitals being able to stay open.
- enraged_camel 6y ago
  >> No one's saying it's not bad. At least I'm not. It's just a lot less bad than what we were told 3 months ago. It's a lot less bad than it was estimated 3 months ago because most states understood the severity of the situation and hunkered down as much as they could. >> that we've been so successful in flattening the curve (and scaring people from going out, including to the hospital for critical treatment), that we've overshot our goal to the point of doing more damage than good Our "deaths per day" number averages 2000. I don't know how this can be remotely perceived as some sort of massive success other than relative to the original estimates that were based on doing nothing.
  - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
    Stopping people from getting the virus was, unfortunately, not the goal. American epidemiologists don't and didn't believe that's something we can achieve in the short term.
    - beerandt 6y ago
      Yes- I was speaking specifically to the goal of not overwhelming the healthcare system. Unfortunately, right now we're saving it from gluttony only to have it starve.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
- lastres0rt 6y ago
  3) We were wrong about the kinds of people who were going to catch this (e.g. poor folks, people of color, people in nursing homes, prisoners, people who work jobs they can't freely leave in meatpacking plants), who while they'll fill up a coffin just the same as anybody... ...are also all groups less likely to go to a hospital / ER even in GOOD times, and even when they do, tend to be treated like crap (e.g. assumed to be "drug-seeking", have their pain dismissed, often end up overlooked in triage, etc.) This is the same old haves vs. have-nots story we've been telling, taken to a while new level -- if you're wealthy enough to be able to work from home, you've likely just been hunkering down and wondering what all the fuss is about. It's not about fear-based leverage, it's about one group of people refusing to admit they're too insulated from the rest of society to see that the lower rungs that keep everything running are getting massacred.