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So uh, maybe we decide that life doesn’t need to be permanently centered around Covid and just move on? And realistically that is what society will do. Move on

So uh, maybe we decide that life doesn’t need to be permanently centered around Covid and just move on? And realistically that is what society will do. Move on. There are infinitely more problems in the world than just Covid. Solving for exactly Covid to the exclusion of literally everything else is complete madness. Any rational person will tell you that. Life is to short to maintain a Covid centric lifestyle… life is meant to be lived. Oh yeah, and we’ve been wringing our hands about hospital capacity for 2 years now. Perhaps we should ask why there isn’t any effort at all into increasing it? Forcing society to do all these restrictions to “protect hospitals” while doing fuck all to increase capacity is also madness… perhaps hospitals are actually just fine? If they were actually “full” why has nothing been done to address the problem? This is an emergency, right?

datameta 5y ago
Spoken like an able-bodied individual of young(er) age and/or someone with zero co-morbidities. Fuck the rest, eh?
- prohobo 5y ago
  He said what most poor people have been saying the entire time. They're willing to take the risk, because the risk is lower than all the other problems they have now. Now, the question is: should you care what poor people say?
  - datameta 5y ago
    People from lower socio-economic backgrounds are statistically more predisposed to develop co-morbidities.
    - prohobo 5y ago
      They also have bigger problems than this virus, get it?
      - ascar 5y ago
        This and your other comments in this thread are really not the kind of attitude one likes to read at HN. You shouldn't be surprised if you get downvoted for it. This community strives from intellectual discussion and not aggressiveness.
    - datameta 5y ago
      Interesting that this uncomfortable truth is downvoted but not refuted. Please show me a study that disproves this. Before anyone says the onus is on me to prove it, you can do a quick google and see for yourself.
labster 5y ago
> Oh yeah, and we’ve been wringing our hands about hospital capacity for 2 years now. Perhaps we should ask why there isn’t any effort at all into increasing it? Yeah seriously, it’s been two years, why haven’t we doubled the number of doctors and nurses by now? Just add more conveyor belts to our factorio.
- twofornone 5y ago
  You could start by not laying off workers who refuse to get vaccinated. You know, the same workers who have been on the front lines exposed to the virus for two years and have unquestionably developed immunity. Forcing mandates onto them is insanity. They are not spreading covid.
- spookthesunset 5y ago
  That is just an excuse though. Figure it out. It’s an emergency. You don’t get to throw up your hands and say it’s impossible. Figure it out. It’s been two years. Where is the hospital capacity to manage this huge emergency?
- m4rtink 5y ago
  Doubling something to fight an enemy that can grow exponentially? Good luck with that... Also I recommend reading a bit about what working on a covid unit is like - it's hell on many levels. Even just the ammount of death and personal tragedies they witness is insane and easily PTSD inducing.
chki 5y ago
Increasing hospital capacities is almost pointless because new cases will be exponential. So doubling your ICU-capacities (which is extremely difficult to do, mainly because you don't have the staff) will buy you two-three weeks until the hospital is full again.
- whiddershins 5y ago
  It peaks though, and comes back down. Every. Single. Time. Regardless of interventions. The real world can't sustain exponential growth for too long, other limiting factors come in to play.
  - m4rtink 5y ago
    It's enough for the peak to swamp the hospitals over capacity for a week or two and the result will be very deadly, even just for non covid related cases.
- spookthesunset 5y ago
  Why has this literally never happened anywhere?
  - MauranKilom 5y ago
    You mean why nobody doubled hospital capacity? (Easier said than done, and doesn't buy you much at all?) Or why exponential growth didn't happen? (It did?) Or why hospitals were never at capacity? (Because measures were taken to prevent specifically that exact scenario?)
MauranKilom 5y ago
So what do you do with the infected people that turn up at the overcrowded hospital? Let them die on the street? Overall COVID19 mortality is still around 2%. In Germany, for example, we currently have 100k deaths. That would increase fivefold if you let every currently unvaccinated person get infected, and that's assuming we can provide the same level of care for all of them (i.e. hospitals are not over capacity). > Perhaps we should ask why there isn’t any effort at all into increasing it? - Building hospitals generally takes more than 1.5 years. - Training nurses does too, although at least there is some elasticity in supply. - Mortality among patients hospitalized with COVID 19 is around 10%. Keeping them out of the hospital in the first place is much more effective than increasing hospital capacity.
- spookthesunset 5y ago
  > Overall COVID19 mortality is still around 2%. It’s not even close to that. Not even in the same ballpark.
  - MauranKilom 5y ago
    According to the graphs on worldometers.info for Germany (https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/germany/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/germany/): > Oct 30 2020: 10.5k total deaths, 517k total cases > Dec 01 2021: 101k total deaths, 5.9 mil total cases So in the last ~year, we had 5.4 mil cases and 90.5k deaths. That's a 1.67% mortality. Please show me the error. Also, feel free to engage with the other points I made.
    - spookthesunset 5y ago
      If you are almost 2 years into this and don’t know why IFR is a more valid metric than CFR, I doubt the media, nor the policy makers, nor most of the “experts” don’t either. The profound lack of understanding the reams and reams of raw data surrounding Covid… no wonder people are scared.

datameta 5y ago

Spoken like an able-bodied individual of young(er) age and/or someone with zero co-morbidities. Fuck the rest, eh?

prohobo 5y ago
He said what most poor people have been saying the entire time. They're willing to take the risk, because the risk is lower than all the other problems they have now. Now, the question is: should you care what poor people say?
- datameta 5y ago
  People from lower socio-economic backgrounds are statistically more predisposed to develop co-morbidities.
  - prohobo 5y ago
    They also have bigger problems than this virus, get it?
    - ascar 5y ago
      This and your other comments in this thread are really not the kind of attitude one likes to read at HN. You shouldn't be surprised if you get downvoted for it. This community strives from intellectual discussion and not aggressiveness.
  - datameta 5y ago
    Interesting that this uncomfortable truth is downvoted but not refuted. Please show me a study that disproves this. Before anyone says the onus is on me to prove it, you can do a quick google and see for yourself.

labster 5y ago

> Oh yeah, and we’ve been wringing our hands about hospital capacity for 2 years now. Perhaps we should ask why there isn’t any effort at all into increasing it? Yeah seriously, it’s been two years, why haven’t we doubled the number of doctors and nurses by now? Just add more conveyor belts to our factorio.

twofornone 5y ago
You could start by not laying off workers who refuse to get vaccinated. You know, the same workers who have been on the front lines exposed to the virus for two years and have unquestionably developed immunity. Forcing mandates onto them is insanity. They are not spreading covid.
spookthesunset 5y ago
That is just an excuse though. Figure it out. It’s an emergency. You don’t get to throw up your hands and say it’s impossible. Figure it out. It’s been two years. Where is the hospital capacity to manage this huge emergency?
m4rtink 5y ago
Doubling something to fight an enemy that can grow exponentially? Good luck with that... Also I recommend reading a bit about what working on a covid unit is like - it's hell on many levels. Even just the ammount of death and personal tragedies they witness is insane and easily PTSD inducing.

chki 5y ago

Increasing hospital capacities is almost pointless because new cases will be exponential. So doubling your ICU-capacities (which is extremely difficult to do, mainly because you don't have the staff) will buy you two-three weeks until the hospital is full again.

whiddershins 5y ago
It peaks though, and comes back down. Every. Single. Time. Regardless of interventions. The real world can't sustain exponential growth for too long, other limiting factors come in to play.
- m4rtink 5y ago
  It's enough for the peak to swamp the hospitals over capacity for a week or two and the result will be very deadly, even just for non covid related cases.
spookthesunset 5y ago
Why has this literally never happened anywhere?
- MauranKilom 5y ago
  You mean why nobody doubled hospital capacity? (Easier said than done, and doesn't buy you much at all?) Or why exponential growth didn't happen? (It did?) Or why hospitals were never at capacity? (Because measures were taken to prevent specifically that exact scenario?)

MauranKilom 5y ago

So what do you do with the infected people that turn up at the overcrowded hospital? Let them die on the street? Overall COVID19 mortality is still around 2%. In Germany, for example, we currently have 100k deaths. That would increase fivefold if you let every currently unvaccinated person get infected, and that's assuming we can provide the same level of care for all of them (i.e. hospitals are not over capacity). > Perhaps we should ask why there isn’t any effort at all into increasing it? - Building hospitals generally takes more than 1.5 years. - Training nurses does too, although at least there is some elasticity in supply. - Mortality among patients hospitalized with COVID 19 is around 10%. Keeping them out of the hospital in the first place is much more effective than increasing hospital capacity.

spookthesunset 5y ago
> Overall COVID19 mortality is still around 2%. It’s not even close to that. Not even in the same ballpark.
- MauranKilom 5y ago
  According to the graphs on worldometers.info for Germany (https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/germany/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/germany/): > Oct 30 2020: 10.5k total deaths, 517k total cases > Dec 01 2021: 101k total deaths, 5.9 mil total cases So in the last ~year, we had 5.4 mil cases and 90.5k deaths. That's a 1.67% mortality. Please show me the error. Also, feel free to engage with the other points I made.
  - spookthesunset 5y ago
    If you are almost 2 years into this and don’t know why IFR is a more valid metric than CFR, I doubt the media, nor the policy makers, nor most of the “experts” don’t either. The profound lack of understanding the reams and reams of raw data surrounding Covid… no wonder people are scared.