4 ms·

Or ... is it that the restrictions are the thing keeping the hospitals from going over capacity?

Izkata 6y ago
You're talking about now, I'm talking about then. We had a ton of extra unused capacity and could have loosened restrictions back then, but didn't. If we had, then maybe people could have handled doing this longer, but we didn't and so people care less and less about following the restrictions.
- Kim_Bruning 6y ago
  Ok, so take a look at this data page from Germany, if you mess with the graphs a bit, you'll see new cases drop off around June, in time for summer holidays. Germany chose to reduce restrictions at that time. That's reasonable, right? https://news.google.com/covid19/map?hl=en-IE&mid=%2Fm%2F0345h&gl=IE&ceid=IE%3Aen https://news.google.com/covid19/map?hl=en-IE&mid=%2Fm%2F0345... So New Zealand was even more successful. By July, they got things well and truly under control: https://news.google.com/covid19/map?hl=en-IE&mid=%2Fm%2F0ctw_b&gl=IE&ceid=IE%3Aen https://news.google.com/covid19/map?hl=en-IE&mid=%2Fm%2F0ctw... Or take France: https://news.google.com/covid19/map?hl=en-IE&mid=%2Fm%2F0f8l9c&gl=IE&ceid=IE%3Aen https://news.google.com/covid19/map?hl=en-IE&mid=%2Fm%2F0f8l... All of these are having a bit more trouble with the second wave, Clearly something has changed about the nature of Covid. But you can see them weathering the first wave, and dealing with the second wave. You see how the number of cases drops off to near 0 during summer? --- This is the USA: https://news.google.com/covid19/map?hl=en-IE&gl=IE&ceid=IE%3Aen&mid=%2Fm%2F09c7w0 https://news.google.com/covid19/map?hl=en-IE&gl=IE&ceid=IE%3... Take care: that Y axis is much larger than the other examples above. On June 1 2020 there were still 22000 measured new cases on that day alone. Sure that's a slight drop from the 34000 cases on April 9. But that's not really safe to loosen restrictions, now is it? (Now we do know that that's an aggregate and some individual states have done better. You can drill down to get that information.)
- Kim_Bruning 6y ago
  Continuing on from my other reply on country scale, we can actually drill down to Illinois and take a look: https://news.google.com/covid19/map?hl=en-IE&gl=IE&ceid=IE%3Aen&mid=%2Fm%2F03v0t https://news.google.com/covid19/map?hl=en-IE&gl=IE&ceid=IE%3... You can see that restrictions did have clear effects in first and second wave. By June, restrictions had beaten back the virus almost far enough. You can also see the effect of strong restrictions at the end of November (up to "Tier 3" by Nov 20) : the number of infections is trending back down. Looks like Illinois is doing a fair job! Thank goodness those extra beds weren't needed.
  - Izkata 6y ago
    You continue to ignore the extra hospital capacity that is my entire point for here, but I'll just add - the cases started dropping Nov 16, days before the new restrictions went into place. If it was the new restrictions having an effect, they shouldn't have started dropping until somewhere around Dec 5.
    - Kim_Bruning 6y ago
      I think it's safe to assume that they were probably at "Tier 2" prior to Nov 20? Due to the way that Covid is stealthy, you don't see the effects of policy measures for 14 days or more. It's not very surprising that policy measures would lag behind the curves. And I don't really see a problem with the extra hospital beds. This particular pandemic is really hard to manage. If someone accidentally prepares more hospital beds than they need, that's perfectly fine by me. That's a much better plan than not having enough. Unless you think that protecting citizens from harm (foreign or domestic) is not a duty of the government, I guess they're doing as good a job as they can, given the circumstances. It's not pretty, but then again it can't be.
    - Kim_Bruning 6y ago
      Additionally, before you ask: You might argue in this case they could have theoretically backed down restrictions to a lower level, once they saw that the lower level was already having an effect. But in leadership, it's often good to stay a given course, if it is at all helpful. In this case, it is, You get back down to lower infection numbers faster, thus allowing people more freedoms again sooner.

You're talking about now, I'm talking about then. We had a ton of extra unused capacity and could have loosened restrictions back then, but didn't. If we had, then maybe people could have handled doing this longer, but we didn't and so people care less and less about following the restrictions.

Kim_Bruning 6y ago
Ok, so take a look at this data page from Germany, if you mess with the graphs a bit, you'll see new cases drop off around June, in time for summer holidays. Germany chose to reduce restrictions at that time. That's reasonable, right? https://news.google.com/covid19/map?hl=en-IE&mid=%2Fm%2F0345h&gl=IE&ceid=IE%3Aen https://news.google.com/covid19/map?hl=en-IE&mid=%2Fm%2F0345... So New Zealand was even more successful. By July, they got things well and truly under control: https://news.google.com/covid19/map?hl=en-IE&mid=%2Fm%2F0ctw_b&gl=IE&ceid=IE%3Aen https://news.google.com/covid19/map?hl=en-IE&mid=%2Fm%2F0ctw... Or take France: https://news.google.com/covid19/map?hl=en-IE&mid=%2Fm%2F0f8l9c&gl=IE&ceid=IE%3Aen https://news.google.com/covid19/map?hl=en-IE&mid=%2Fm%2F0f8l... All of these are having a bit more trouble with the second wave, Clearly something has changed about the nature of Covid. But you can see them weathering the first wave, and dealing with the second wave. You see how the number of cases drops off to near 0 during summer? --- This is the USA: https://news.google.com/covid19/map?hl=en-IE&gl=IE&ceid=IE%3Aen&mid=%2Fm%2F09c7w0 https://news.google.com/covid19/map?hl=en-IE&gl=IE&ceid=IE%3... Take care: that Y axis is much larger than the other examples above. On June 1 2020 there were still 22000 measured new cases on that day alone. Sure that's a slight drop from the 34000 cases on April 9. But that's not really safe to loosen restrictions, now is it? (Now we do know that that's an aggregate and some individual states have done better. You can drill down to get that information.)
Kim_Bruning 6y ago
Continuing on from my other reply on country scale, we can actually drill down to Illinois and take a look: https://news.google.com/covid19/map?hl=en-IE&gl=IE&ceid=IE%3Aen&mid=%2Fm%2F03v0t https://news.google.com/covid19/map?hl=en-IE&gl=IE&ceid=IE%3... You can see that restrictions did have clear effects in first and second wave. By June, restrictions had beaten back the virus almost far enough. You can also see the effect of strong restrictions at the end of November (up to "Tier 3" by Nov 20) : the number of infections is trending back down. Looks like Illinois is doing a fair job! Thank goodness those extra beds weren't needed.
- Izkata 6y ago
  You continue to ignore the extra hospital capacity that is my entire point for here, but I'll just add - the cases started dropping Nov 16, days before the new restrictions went into place. If it was the new restrictions having an effect, they shouldn't have started dropping until somewhere around Dec 5.
  - Kim_Bruning 6y ago
    I think it's safe to assume that they were probably at "Tier 2" prior to Nov 20? Due to the way that Covid is stealthy, you don't see the effects of policy measures for 14 days or more. It's not very surprising that policy measures would lag behind the curves. And I don't really see a problem with the extra hospital beds. This particular pandemic is really hard to manage. If someone accidentally prepares more hospital beds than they need, that's perfectly fine by me. That's a much better plan than not having enough. Unless you think that protecting citizens from harm (foreign or domestic) is not a duty of the government, I guess they're doing as good a job as they can, given the circumstances. It's not pretty, but then again it can't be.
  - Kim_Bruning 6y ago
    Additionally, before you ask: You might argue in this case they could have theoretically backed down restrictions to a lower level, once they saw that the lower level was already having an effect. But in leadership, it's often good to stay a given course, if it is at all helpful. In this case, it is, You get back down to lower infection numbers faster, thus allowing people more freedoms again sooner.