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FWIW, in most of the US and Europe there is no pressure on healthcare facilities. Most hospitals are seeing lower than normal utilization, primarily from non-Co

FWIW, in most of the US and Europe there is no pressure on healthcare facilities. Most hospitals are seeing lower than normal utilization, primarily from non-Covid cases. Edit: as an example, my county (Santa Clara) is using under 10% of hospital beds for Covid. This is typical, check your county dashboard if they have one and you are likely to see a similar number. Source: https://www.sccgov.org/sites/covid19/Pages/dashboard.aspx#hospital https://www.sccgov.org/sites/covid19/Pages/dashboard.aspx#ho...

ithkuil 6y ago
See reverse Tinkerbell effect
hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
My take is that what happened in Northern Italy freaked out the world, but it was actually rather unique. Very high density coupled with lots of intergenerational living. One reason Sweden's approach may work out in the end is they have the highest proportion of single person households of any country on Earth.
- kgwgk 6y ago
  > what happened in Northern Italy freaked out the world, but it was actually rather unique Was it? NYC has reported more deaths than Lombardy (with less population) and NY/NJ as many deaths as Italy with half the population.
  - xamuel 6y ago
    The high death count in NY/NJ is probably related to the fact that in both states, the governors ordered that nursing homes not be permitted to refuse coronavirus patients.
    - kgwgk 6y ago
      Massachusetts and Connecticut are not far behind, for what it’s worth. I don’t know if the same factor applies.
      - xamuel 6y ago
        This site lists NY, NJ, Massachusetts and California as the four states to issue such orders: https://www.aarp.org/caregiving/health/info-2020/coronavirus-transfers-to-nursing-homes.html https://www.aarp.org/caregiving/health/info-2020/coronavirus...
        kgwgk 6y ago
        Interesting, thanks. But apparently MA didn’t really do it, according to that article.
  - hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
    I made a comment in another thread, but NYC is also quite unique in the US: extreme density and extremely high usage of public transportation. So far all the places that have had hospital systems overwhelmed (or on the verge) have had extremely high density, lots of intergenerational mixing, or both.
- bkor 6y ago
  Northern Italy was repeated across various big counties. I'm also wondering where you're getting your information from Sweden from. It's not easy to get a good insight into any country. E.g. Sweden's approach is quite different than what you might read if you read/follow US based news sources.
- riquito 6y ago
  Sweden approach gave them a spot in the countries with the highest mortality rate per capita (so far ~376 deaths per million, versus 55 and 44 in the neighbour Finland and Norway [1][2]). It may work out for them because it's a lowly populated country but I wouldn't try that model anywhere with an higher density. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/21/just-7-per-cent-of-stockholm-had-covid-19-antibodies-by-end-of-april-study-sweden-coronavirus https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/21/just-7-per-cen... [2] https://www.businessinsider.com/sweden-coronavirus-per-capita-death-rate-among-highest-2020-5 https://www.businessinsider.com/sweden-coronavirus-per-capit...
  - myk9001 6y ago
    - Japan effectively had no lockdown and basically no testing[1]. - Japan is populated extremely densely[2]. - Japan is number 2 by the population's median age (for comparison, Italy is 5th)[3]. - Japan had 808(!) COVID-19 fatalities[4]. - Despite the lockdown, in New York "most new coronavirus hospitalizations are people who had been staying home"[5]. - New York had 29112(!) deaths[6]. One just has to ask, do lockdowns even have that big of an impact on the spread of the virus? Or did it just ran its natural course in each country -- in lockdown or not -- and differences in the numbers of deaths are just down to dumb chance? "... there’s little correlation between the severity of a nation’s restrictions and whether it managed to curb excess fatalities..."[7] [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-22/did-japan-just-beat-the-virus-without-lockdowns-or-mass-testing https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-22/did-japan... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependencies_by_population_density https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependen... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_median_age https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_median_ag... [4] https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/japan/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/japan/ [5] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/06/ny-gov-cuomo-says-its-shocking-most-new-coronavirus-hospitalizations-are-people-staying-home.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/06/ny-gov-cuomo-says-its-shocki... [6] https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/new-york/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/new-york/ [7] https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2020-opinion-coronavirus-europe-lockdown-excess-deaths-recession/ https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2020-opinion-coronavirus-...
- phatfish 6y ago
  Unsure how its going to "work out in the end", unless they intend to resurrect their dead. Who would choose to die now without a "lockdown" when the other option is die later with a lockdown, including the added bonus of there being more work done to understand the virus and how to treat it, which might mean not dying at all.
  - aianus 6y ago
    Nobody is choosing to die now to avoid a lockdown. They're choosing a ~0.1% chance of dying now to avoid a lockdown (I'm assuming the old and sick are in favor of the lockdown). 0.1% of the rest of my life is less than three weeks, it's not a bad gamble to avoid an 18-month lockdown if that were the choice.
  - hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
    > Who would choose to die now without a "lockdown" when the other option is die later with a lockdown Umm, lots of people? If we prohibited all vehicle traffic we would prevent 1.3 million deaths worldwide, yet lots of people appear willing to drive. Look, I don't mean to minimize the deaths, and the lockdowns were a very rational response given what was known initially. At the same time, humans make risky choices all the time, and it's not unreasonable to ask if the cost of the lockdowns is worth the lowered risk, especially in lower-density locales.
    - tigershark 6y ago
      Covid-19 killed twice the annual car deaths in 1 month and half in US. And this with a lockdown in place.
    - phatfish 6y ago
      > If we prohibited all vehicle traffic we would prevent 1.3 million deaths worldwide. Sure, seems a bit extreme though. I suggest we remove all the safety features on cars, it costs the car companies loads in R&D to comply with all those regulations. You take a risk when you drive, and to be honest people should just be better drivers and there will be less accidents. Far less accidents in lower-density locales as well.
bkor 6y ago
Europe is way too varied to day that. I noticed various countries whereby the healthcare is overwhelmed. Various things were done to ensure they could cooe. E.g. by delaying some of the medical care. But also by taking various actions to slow down the spread. I'm not sure what's the basis of your idea.
dr_dshiv 6y ago
Is there any data on that?
- cm2187 6y ago
  Like major hospitals furloughing employees: https://www.foxnews.com/science/mayo-clinic-furlough-or-cut-pay-employees https://www.foxnews.com/science/mayo-clinic-furlough-or-cut-... All the field hospitals in the UK and US have been now closed.
- marcell 6y ago
  Yes, lots. My county (Santa Clara) has less than 10% of beds used for Covid: https://www.sccgov.org/sites/covid19/Pages/dashboard.aspx#hospital https://www.sccgov.org/sites/covid19/Pages/dashboard.aspx#ho... This is direct, primary source data, not a media report.
  - bkor 6y ago
    You're entirely incorrect though about 'Europe'. Though seems kind of logical if you follow US based news sources. They leave out a lot of detail and get things wrong. Various countries in Europe were heavily affected healthcare wise. That you say it's not the case while linking to only your own county.. feels bad.
    - marcell 6y ago
      I’m living in America so I mainly follow the cases here. Do you have any data showing European hospitals going over capacity?
BurningFrog 6y ago
Much of this is because any non urgent care is suspended. There is a lot of pent up health care need building up. Some of it lethal.
- goatinaboat 6y ago
  There is a lot of pent up health care need building up. Some of it lethal. The impact of the lockdown is going to be 10-100x that of coronavirus itself. No healthcare system is prepared for it.
  - redisman 6y ago
    How would the hospital load look like in the US today without lockdowns?
    - ls612 6y ago
      In New York? They’d be fucked. In most of the rest of the country? Simply canceling sporting events, concerts, conventions, and other mass gatherings would probably have been enough. Even the CDC is now saying surface transmission is highly unlikely and that the aforementioned superspreading events were disproportionately responsible for the early exponential growth,
      - ceejayoz 6y ago
        You don’t need a giant gathering to have a potential superspreading event. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/23/missouri-hair-stylist-coronavirus-exposure https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/23/missouri-hai...
  - macintux 6y ago
    So a disease that’s easily on its way to being the number 3 or 4 killer in the U.S. this year is going to be outweighed by...what, exactly?
    - 6y ago

ithkuil 6y ago

See reverse Tinkerbell effect

hn_throwaway_99 6y ago

My take is that what happened in Northern Italy freaked out the world, but it was actually rather unique. Very high density coupled with lots of intergenerational living. One reason Sweden's approach may work out in the end is they have the highest proportion of single person households of any country on Earth.

kgwgk 6y ago
> what happened in Northern Italy freaked out the world, but it was actually rather unique Was it? NYC has reported more deaths than Lombardy (with less population) and NY/NJ as many deaths as Italy with half the population.
- xamuel 6y ago
  The high death count in NY/NJ is probably related to the fact that in both states, the governors ordered that nursing homes not be permitted to refuse coronavirus patients.
  - kgwgk 6y ago
    Massachusetts and Connecticut are not far behind, for what it’s worth. I don’t know if the same factor applies.
    - xamuel 6y ago
      This site lists NY, NJ, Massachusetts and California as the four states to issue such orders: https://www.aarp.org/caregiving/health/info-2020/coronavirus-transfers-to-nursing-homes.html https://www.aarp.org/caregiving/health/info-2020/coronavirus...
      - kgwgk 6y ago
        Interesting, thanks. But apparently MA didn’t really do it, according to that article.
- hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
  I made a comment in another thread, but NYC is also quite unique in the US: extreme density and extremely high usage of public transportation. So far all the places that have had hospital systems overwhelmed (or on the verge) have had extremely high density, lots of intergenerational mixing, or both.
bkor 6y ago
Northern Italy was repeated across various big counties. I'm also wondering where you're getting your information from Sweden from. It's not easy to get a good insight into any country. E.g. Sweden's approach is quite different than what you might read if you read/follow US based news sources.
riquito 6y ago
Sweden approach gave them a spot in the countries with the highest mortality rate per capita (so far ~376 deaths per million, versus 55 and 44 in the neighbour Finland and Norway [1][2]). It may work out for them because it's a lowly populated country but I wouldn't try that model anywhere with an higher density. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/21/just-7-per-cent-of-stockholm-had-covid-19-antibodies-by-end-of-april-study-sweden-coronavirus https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/21/just-7-per-cen... [2] https://www.businessinsider.com/sweden-coronavirus-per-capita-death-rate-among-highest-2020-5 https://www.businessinsider.com/sweden-coronavirus-per-capit...
- myk9001 6y ago
  - Japan effectively had no lockdown and basically no testing[1]. - Japan is populated extremely densely[2]. - Japan is number 2 by the population's median age (for comparison, Italy is 5th)[3]. - Japan had 808(!) COVID-19 fatalities[4]. - Despite the lockdown, in New York "most new coronavirus hospitalizations are people who had been staying home"[5]. - New York had 29112(!) deaths[6]. One just has to ask, do lockdowns even have that big of an impact on the spread of the virus? Or did it just ran its natural course in each country -- in lockdown or not -- and differences in the numbers of deaths are just down to dumb chance? "... there’s little correlation between the severity of a nation’s restrictions and whether it managed to curb excess fatalities..."[7] [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-22/did-japan-just-beat-the-virus-without-lockdowns-or-mass-testing https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-22/did-japan... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependencies_by_population_density https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependen... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_median_age https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_median_ag... [4] https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/japan/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/japan/ [5] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/06/ny-gov-cuomo-says-its-shocking-most-new-coronavirus-hospitalizations-are-people-staying-home.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/06/ny-gov-cuomo-says-its-shocki... [6] https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/new-york/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/new-york/ [7] https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2020-opinion-coronavirus-europe-lockdown-excess-deaths-recession/ https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2020-opinion-coronavirus-...
phatfish 6y ago
Unsure how its going to "work out in the end", unless they intend to resurrect their dead. Who would choose to die now without a "lockdown" when the other option is die later with a lockdown, including the added bonus of there being more work done to understand the virus and how to treat it, which might mean not dying at all.
- aianus 6y ago
  Nobody is choosing to die now to avoid a lockdown. They're choosing a ~0.1% chance of dying now to avoid a lockdown (I'm assuming the old and sick are in favor of the lockdown). 0.1% of the rest of my life is less than three weeks, it's not a bad gamble to avoid an 18-month lockdown if that were the choice.
- hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
  > Who would choose to die now without a "lockdown" when the other option is die later with a lockdown Umm, lots of people? If we prohibited all vehicle traffic we would prevent 1.3 million deaths worldwide, yet lots of people appear willing to drive. Look, I don't mean to minimize the deaths, and the lockdowns were a very rational response given what was known initially. At the same time, humans make risky choices all the time, and it's not unreasonable to ask if the cost of the lockdowns is worth the lowered risk, especially in lower-density locales.
  - tigershark 6y ago
    Covid-19 killed twice the annual car deaths in 1 month and half in US. And this with a lockdown in place.
  - phatfish 6y ago
    > If we prohibited all vehicle traffic we would prevent 1.3 million deaths worldwide. Sure, seems a bit extreme though. I suggest we remove all the safety features on cars, it costs the car companies loads in R&D to comply with all those regulations. You take a risk when you drive, and to be honest people should just be better drivers and there will be less accidents. Far less accidents in lower-density locales as well.

bkor 6y ago

Europe is way too varied to day that. I noticed various countries whereby the healthcare is overwhelmed. Various things were done to ensure they could cooe. E.g. by delaying some of the medical care. But also by taking various actions to slow down the spread. I'm not sure what's the basis of your idea.

dr_dshiv 6y ago

Is there any data on that?

cm2187 6y ago
Like major hospitals furloughing employees: https://www.foxnews.com/science/mayo-clinic-furlough-or-cut-pay-employees https://www.foxnews.com/science/mayo-clinic-furlough-or-cut-... All the field hospitals in the UK and US have been now closed.
marcell 6y ago
Yes, lots. My county (Santa Clara) has less than 10% of beds used for Covid: https://www.sccgov.org/sites/covid19/Pages/dashboard.aspx#hospital https://www.sccgov.org/sites/covid19/Pages/dashboard.aspx#ho... This is direct, primary source data, not a media report.
- bkor 6y ago
  You're entirely incorrect though about 'Europe'. Though seems kind of logical if you follow US based news sources. They leave out a lot of detail and get things wrong. Various countries in Europe were heavily affected healthcare wise. That you say it's not the case while linking to only your own county.. feels bad.
  - marcell 6y ago
    I’m living in America so I mainly follow the cases here. Do you have any data showing European hospitals going over capacity?

BurningFrog 6y ago

Much of this is because any non urgent care is suspended. There is a lot of pent up health care need building up. Some of it lethal.

goatinaboat 6y ago
There is a lot of pent up health care need building up. Some of it lethal. The impact of the lockdown is going to be 10-100x that of coronavirus itself. No healthcare system is prepared for it.
- redisman 6y ago
  How would the hospital load look like in the US today without lockdowns?
  - ls612 6y ago
    In New York? They’d be fucked. In most of the rest of the country? Simply canceling sporting events, concerts, conventions, and other mass gatherings would probably have been enough. Even the CDC is now saying surface transmission is highly unlikely and that the aforementioned superspreading events were disproportionately responsible for the early exponential growth,
    - ceejayoz 6y ago
      You don’t need a giant gathering to have a potential superspreading event. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/23/missouri-hair-stylist-coronavirus-exposure https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/23/missouri-hai...
- macintux 6y ago
  So a disease that’s easily on its way to being the number 3 or 4 killer in the U.S. this year is going to be outweighed by...what, exactly?
  - 6y ago