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This is a good point. Hospitalization and death are really all that matter. People will be getting sick (to lesser degrees, likely, but it will still happen) fr

This is a good point. Hospitalization and death are really all that matter. People will be getting sick (to lesser degrees, likely, but it will still happen) from this for generations to come. What really matters is whether or not you are sick in bed at home and missing a few days of work vs sick in the hospital, occupying emergency health resources and facing potential death.

hef19898 5y ago
And case numbers are the best metric we have to predict deaths and hospitalization. Together with vaccination rates, age and so on. But overall, if cases go up, hospitalization will go up a couple of weeks later. Why would we not use that to enable to us act instead of reacting once it's too late?
- brandon272 5y ago
  Exactly. Case numbers are not meaningless. They are a leading indicator. People unexpectedly showing up to hospitals is a lagging indicator of disease prevalence.
  - CountDrewku 5y ago
    They are not a meaningful indicator in less virulent strains. At some point you will HAVE to accept risk. COVID is not disappearing. The next step is allowing law enforcement to force vaccinate people. Is that what you want? Do you want to continue masking, vaccine boosting, locking down indefinitely? COVID will not be eradicated so what threshold do we need to meet for this response to stop and let everyone return to normality?
- _ea1k 5y ago
  Because as new variants with lower virulence emerge, and we see more breakthrough and reinfection cases, that direct link will become less direct. We don't lock down for the flu because the virulence of the flu is lower than covid and we consider it acceptable. At some point, we'll pass those acceptability thresholds for COVID as well. For some people, and regions, they already have passed those thresholds, as both severity and people's acceptance of different outcomes vary.
  - hef19898 5y ago
    I'm not into modelling, I would imagine that, depending on how good the vaccines work against variants, even that could be modelled quite well. For me, the threshold when Covid becomes an acceptable fact of life is when hospitals can work normally without any measures in place. We seem to be quite far from that.
    - _ea1k 5y ago
      In my state, we have ~10k hospital beds. There are currently ~450 covid patients that are hospitalized and that's actually significantly higher than last week. I think a lot of places are pretty close to that situation now. Of course, total hospital bed utilization is still over 80%, but overwhelmingly its non covid.

hef19898 5y ago

And case numbers are the best metric we have to predict deaths and hospitalization. Together with vaccination rates, age and so on. But overall, if cases go up, hospitalization will go up a couple of weeks later. Why would we not use that to enable to us act instead of reacting once it's too late?

brandon272 5y ago
Exactly. Case numbers are not meaningless. They are a leading indicator. People unexpectedly showing up to hospitals is a lagging indicator of disease prevalence.
- CountDrewku 5y ago
  They are not a meaningful indicator in less virulent strains. At some point you will HAVE to accept risk. COVID is not disappearing. The next step is allowing law enforcement to force vaccinate people. Is that what you want? Do you want to continue masking, vaccine boosting, locking down indefinitely? COVID will not be eradicated so what threshold do we need to meet for this response to stop and let everyone return to normality?
_ea1k 5y ago
Because as new variants with lower virulence emerge, and we see more breakthrough and reinfection cases, that direct link will become less direct. We don't lock down for the flu because the virulence of the flu is lower than covid and we consider it acceptable. At some point, we'll pass those acceptability thresholds for COVID as well. For some people, and regions, they already have passed those thresholds, as both severity and people's acceptance of different outcomes vary.
- hef19898 5y ago
  I'm not into modelling, I would imagine that, depending on how good the vaccines work against variants, even that could be modelled quite well. For me, the threshold when Covid becomes an acceptable fact of life is when hospitals can work normally without any measures in place. We seem to be quite far from that.
  - _ea1k 5y ago
    In my state, we have ~10k hospital beds. There are currently ~450 covid patients that are hospitalized and that's actually significantly higher than last week. I think a lot of places are pretty close to that situation now. Of course, total hospital bed utilization is still over 80%, but overwhelmingly its non covid.