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> "Encouraging people to go out and get infected" Yes, this is an exaggeration, but it's not too far from what some people are suggesting. The fact is, without

> "Encouraging people to go out and get infected" Yes, this is an exaggeration, but it's not too far from what some people are suggesting. The fact is, without containment measures, there will likely be hundreds of thousands of needless deaths.

XorNot 6y ago
Millions. There will be millions of needless deaths. Without containment measures, you no longer have hospitals (either they're full, or the staff are burned out and quit, probably both) for any life-threatening conditions. The staff thing is the one people seem to completely not get: hospital staff are under absolutely no obligations to keep working overtime shifts. They can in fact simply decide "I'm done" walk off the job and go live in a cabin. Then you get to wait 24 years till we can grow and train some more, minimum.
- AndrewBissell 6y ago
  > Without containment measures, you no longer have hospitals (either they're full, or the staff are burned out and quit, probably both) for any life-threatening conditions. Doesn't seem to be the case so far in Sweden. In fact Minnesota's per-capita rate of COVID deaths just surpassed Sweden's even though they've done much more in the way of lockdowns. Seem to be some confounding variables at play here besides "are you locked down or not?" > They can in fact simply decide "I'm done" walk off the job and go live in a cabin. This is a fantasy scenario. Most nurses are probably in no financial position to do this and leaving to find another job is a dicey prospect right now. I agree that we should not put the hospitals or their staff under undue stress which is why it's such a crime that COVID is being used for cover to furlough staff and impose budget cuts. The degree of hospital overcrowding seems overstated at the moment: https://twitter.com/tlowdon/status/1334565211148152832 https://twitter.com/tlowdon/status/1334565211148152832
  - tylerhou 6y ago
    > Doesn't seem to be the case so far in Sweden. In fact Minnesota's per-capita rate of COVID deaths just surpassed Sweden's even though they've done much more in the way of lockdowns. According to Oxford and NYTimes, Minnesota has relatively lax lockdowns compared to other states: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/18/us/covid-state-restrictions.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/18/us/covid-stat.... States in the US with more lockdowns also have lower hospitalization and case rates, which suggests that lockdowns are at least correlated with lower infections. To prove causation, you might want more evidence, but to me the mechanism of how lockdowns prevent infections is pretty clear. > The degree of hospital overcrowding seems overstated at the moment: https://twitter.com/tlowdon/status/1334565211148152832 https://twitter.com/tlowdon/status/1334565211148152832 This is lazy analysis. Like another responder said, national averages don't matter much when individual cities are being overwhelmed. A tech analogy: You can't say that your service is healthy just because its median latency is 50ms. If the p99 latency is a minute, then your service has performance issues. Second, because of containment measures, the prevalence of the cold and flu (and other contagious diseases) has also gone down. 2019 is not the correct baseline to make a comparison -- 2019 with lockdowns (and no COVID) would be.

XorNot 6y ago

Millions. There will be millions of needless deaths. Without containment measures, you no longer have hospitals (either they're full, or the staff are burned out and quit, probably both) for any life-threatening conditions. The staff thing is the one people seem to completely not get: hospital staff are under absolutely no obligations to keep working overtime shifts. They can in fact simply decide "I'm done" walk off the job and go live in a cabin. Then you get to wait 24 years till we can grow and train some more, minimum.

AndrewBissell 6y ago
> Without containment measures, you no longer have hospitals (either they're full, or the staff are burned out and quit, probably both) for any life-threatening conditions. Doesn't seem to be the case so far in Sweden. In fact Minnesota's per-capita rate of COVID deaths just surpassed Sweden's even though they've done much more in the way of lockdowns. Seem to be some confounding variables at play here besides "are you locked down or not?" > They can in fact simply decide "I'm done" walk off the job and go live in a cabin. This is a fantasy scenario. Most nurses are probably in no financial position to do this and leaving to find another job is a dicey prospect right now. I agree that we should not put the hospitals or their staff under undue stress which is why it's such a crime that COVID is being used for cover to furlough staff and impose budget cuts. The degree of hospital overcrowding seems overstated at the moment: https://twitter.com/tlowdon/status/1334565211148152832 https://twitter.com/tlowdon/status/1334565211148152832
- tylerhou 6y ago
  > Doesn't seem to be the case so far in Sweden. In fact Minnesota's per-capita rate of COVID deaths just surpassed Sweden's even though they've done much more in the way of lockdowns. According to Oxford and NYTimes, Minnesota has relatively lax lockdowns compared to other states: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/18/us/covid-state-restrictions.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/18/us/covid-stat.... States in the US with more lockdowns also have lower hospitalization and case rates, which suggests that lockdowns are at least correlated with lower infections. To prove causation, you might want more evidence, but to me the mechanism of how lockdowns prevent infections is pretty clear. > The degree of hospital overcrowding seems overstated at the moment: https://twitter.com/tlowdon/status/1334565211148152832 https://twitter.com/tlowdon/status/1334565211148152832 This is lazy analysis. Like another responder said, national averages don't matter much when individual cities are being overwhelmed. A tech analogy: You can't say that your service is healthy just because its median latency is 50ms. If the p99 latency is a minute, then your service has performance issues. Second, because of containment measures, the prevalence of the cold and flu (and other contagious diseases) has also gone down. 2019 is not the correct baseline to make a comparison -- 2019 with lockdowns (and no COVID) would be.