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The idea that we were ‘flattening the curve’ was extremely heavily publicized in most countries.

by jrmg 3y ago

bugglebeetle 3y ago
“Flattening the curve” has nothing to do with Zero COVID. The latter was used to describe authoritarian Chinese policy and the former is what countries in the west encouraged to prevent their hospital systems from getting overwhelmed before vaccination was widely available.
enragedcacti 3y ago
Yup, while the average person probably overestimated the possibility that the (then future) vaccines could eradicate covid, the messaging was pretty clear from day one that practically everyone was going to get it and that the goal of lockdowns was to stop a healthcare collapse. It's interesting to me how much revisionism seems to happen with covid specifically. Did people misunderstand it at the time or has the perception changed after the fact? receipts: https://www.google.com/search?q=flatten+the+curve&tbs=cdr%3A1%2Ccd_min%3A%2Ccd_max%3A4%2F1%2F2020&tbm= https://www.google.com/search?q=flatten+the+curve&tbs=cdr%3A...
cempaka 3y ago
In the U.S., the initial promise was that it would be done to provide time to shore up capacity in the healthcare system ("15 Days to Slow the Spread" as the mailers that were sent out described). And then no capacity was added and the bait-and-switch of "lockdown until vaccine" was rolled in states where it was politically viable. And then even after the vaccines were available to everyone, the completely ridiculous idea took root that "the pandemic was still ongoing because of the unvaccinated," which required everyone to keep masking and absurd rules like children eating physically separated lunches outside, as long as there was some nonzero number of new infections. Basically through much of 2021 a great deal of public health policy was still predicated on the idea that it was possible and essential to prevent as many people as possible from ever having an initial SARS-CoV-2 infection. Only Omicron's complete immune escape put an end to it.
- TMWNN 3y ago
  >And then no capacity was added That's because capacity in the West was never lacking. Italian and New York hospitals were overwhelmed because a) both places put sick elderly into old age homes. (42% of US COVID19 deaths in 2020 occurred in old age homes!) b) Like elsewhere early on, doctors put everyone serious onto ventilators in a mistaken belief that they should treat patients like they do ARDS cases based on blood oxygen levels. This damaged healthy lung sacs and caused long-term dependence on mechanical respiration that doctors found almost impossible to wean patients from, and other side effects like deep vein thrombosis; Nick Cordero is an example. (This article from April 2020 <https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/08/doctors-say-ventilators-overused-for-covid-19/ https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/08/doctors-say-ventilators-...> was completely vindicated in retrospect.) Neither happened after the first few months. And no, none of those field hospitals built in parking lots and stadiums everywhere were used, either. In Wales, for example, Millennium Stadium was converted into a temporary field hospital with 300 beds and capacity to expand to 2000 beds. It was such a big deal that a public contest was held to name it Dragon's Heart Hospital <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon%27s_Heart_Hospital https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon%27s_Heart_Hospital>. However, said hospital never had more than 46 patients at one time, and was closed in six weeks for lack of use! Even in NYC, which really did see overloaded hospitals briefly in March-April 2020, USNS Comfort treated a total of 179 patients. USNS Mercy treated a total of 77 patients in LA.

The idea that we were ‘flattening the curve’ was extremely heavily publicized in most countries.

by jrmg 3y ago

The idea that we were ‘flattening the curve’ was extremely heavily publicized in most countries.

“Flattening the curve” has nothing to do with Zero COVID. The latter was used to describe authoritarian Chinese policy and the former is what countries in the west encouraged to prevent their hospital systems from getting overwhelmed before vaccination was widely available.

enragedcacti 3y ago

Yup, while the average person probably overestimated the possibility that the (then future) vaccines could eradicate covid, the messaging was pretty clear from day one that practically everyone was going to get it and that the goal of lockdowns was to stop a healthcare collapse. It's interesting to me how much revisionism seems to happen with covid specifically. Did people misunderstand it at the time or has the perception changed after the fact? receipts: https://www.google.com/search?q=flatten+the+curve&tbs=cdr%3A1%2Ccd_min%3A%2Ccd_max%3A4%2F1%2F2020&tbm= https://www.google.com/search?q=flatten+the+curve&tbs=cdr%3A...

cempaka 3y ago

In the U.S., the initial promise was that it would be done to provide time to shore up capacity in the healthcare system ("15 Days to Slow the Spread" as the mailers that were sent out described). And then no capacity was added and the bait-and-switch of "lockdown until vaccine" was rolled in states where it was politically viable. And then even after the vaccines were available to everyone, the completely ridiculous idea took root that "the pandemic was still ongoing because of the unvaccinated," which required everyone to keep masking and absurd rules like children eating physically separated lunches outside, as long as there was some nonzero number of new infections. Basically through much of 2021 a great deal of public health policy was still predicated on the idea that it was possible and essential to prevent as many people as possible from ever having an initial SARS-CoV-2 infection. Only Omicron's complete immune escape put an end to it.

TMWNN 3y ago
>And then no capacity was added That's because capacity in the West was never lacking. Italian and New York hospitals were overwhelmed because a) both places put sick elderly into old age homes. (42% of US COVID19 deaths in 2020 occurred in old age homes!) b) Like elsewhere early on, doctors put everyone serious onto ventilators in a mistaken belief that they should treat patients like they do ARDS cases based on blood oxygen levels. This damaged healthy lung sacs and caused long-term dependence on mechanical respiration that doctors found almost impossible to wean patients from, and other side effects like deep vein thrombosis; Nick Cordero is an example. (This article from April 2020 <https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/08/doctors-say-ventilators-overused-for-covid-19/ https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/08/doctors-say-ventilators-...> was completely vindicated in retrospect.) Neither happened after the first few months. And no, none of those field hospitals built in parking lots and stadiums everywhere were used, either. In Wales, for example, Millennium Stadium was converted into a temporary field hospital with 300 beds and capacity to expand to 2000 beds. It was such a big deal that a public contest was held to name it Dragon's Heart Hospital <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon%27s_Heart_Hospital https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon%27s_Heart_Hospital>. However, said hospital never had more than 46 patients at one time, and was closed in six weeks for lack of use! Even in NYC, which really did see overloaded hospitals briefly in March-April 2020, USNS Comfort treated a total of 179 patients. USNS Mercy treated a total of 77 patients in LA.