The level of ignorance in these Covid-19 threads, as evidenced by the OP, is really eye-opening.

OK, so they may have overshot the goal. Better that it turned out this way, rather than hospitals being slammed with huge numbers of infected patients. Hospitals will come back financially...sickness and disease aren't going away anytime soon.

It's not only about them. It's about EVERYONE, and about not spreading this virus to others. Try and think beyond yourself for a change...

AH, the blanket statement of everyone is ignorant... other than people who agree with you of course. :rolleyes:

Pretend that there was no cost to other business sectors. Just say oops, well Hospitals will come back financially.. Better that it turned out this way

So stamping on my rights is just fine even though the justification was deeply flawed? It's okay to destroy people's lives based on bad guesses?

Yes, it is a person's responsibility to take actions for himself or herself, not force government to restrict other's rights to keep them safe.

Tobra:
My wife has commented on this. Basically people are not going to the ER for dumb stuff because of COVID. They are staying home unless they are really sick.

In addition the homeless are not rolling thru wanting their turkey sandwich and causing trouble.

Of course my wife is 33 years Critical care, so unless I have bones sticking out, a pool of blood, or 105* temp, I am being a Pu**y :D.

Your rights end where his fear begins. From his POV, apparently.

Seriously, ^this^ is the crux of the matter. People FEAR that hospitals will be over run so they label activities and label people "non-essential" and strip them of their rights.

Let's all imagine, for a moment, if P Trump had gotten out ahead of the Governors and deemed groups of people "non-essential" and strip them of their rights. --the shlt-storm would be EPIC!

Back to the 2nd wave issue. Something puzzles me. The experts have lately been saying they don't think the warm weather this summer will have the beneficial effect of slowing down the spread of the disease. This is made evident by the fact that southern hemisphere and tropical countries have been impacted similarly to northern hemisphere countries. Wouldn't this greatly reduce the likelihood of a 2nd wave? It should just keep chugging along regardless of climate.

Right. But I suspect the lack of folks traveling and much lower than usual motor vehicle traffic probably would. Fewer folks out and about doing stupid stuff.

You might think that everyone being locked at home with family, loss of jobs/work/income and increased substance abuse due to additional stress might increase the amount of domestic abuse.

I've wondered about the effect the lockdown has had on crime. I would think that burglary would be decreasing because homes are rarely empty either during the day or at night or on weekends.

The cancellation of elective surgeries would, I think, have increased the number of ORs and beds available in hospitals.

My daughter is a PA for an orthopedic surgeon who has 3 PAs. The PAs are only working 4 days a week now instead of being swamped 5 days a week, and they've discussed dropping them down to 3 days a week, but the Dr is fighting that. It also looks like Texas is talking about allowing some elective surgeries to begin (I think only if they won't involved hospital stays or something like that).

Stick to the narrative you are being given at this exact moment to justify the thing that is being proposed right now. Don't think too hard about how it conflicts with the narrative used to justify the last thing. SmileWavy

Home burglaries are down, breaking into businesses is up, or that is my impression. Homeless are afraid of the Kung Flu, hence are staying away from ED, along with everyone else. Less traffic, less car wrecks, less everything.

I don't know about the rest of the country, but there are not very many people with this stuff in the hospitals around here.

We had three at one point. They were all over 70 and all died. We haven't had a fatality in two weeks. We haven't had a new case in 3 days. Every day, a person who had it (or two) is considered recovered. We are down to 6 active cases and 72 recovered.

https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/04/16/tracking-covid-19-excess-deaths-across-countries

Look at the graphs in the link, even if you don't read it. The official COVID figures are usually around half of the actual excess deaths. So this is quite a bit worse than the seasonal flu, and that is with social distancing and confinement practised in most cases.

Car prowls and car theft are up around here. People don't notice for days.

Yea-like the idiot who said this today

COVID-19 patients are only taking up 2% of hospital beds and 8% of intensive care unit beds, UPMC officials said.

"We're now on the opposite side of what many predicted to be our worst week, our Pearl Harbor," Yealy said. "The very high surge that we prepared for simply hasn't happened."

Dr. Yealy is the head of emergency medicine for UPMC

But telling people you better be missing a limb to get into our ER will keep them empty.
Funny how people don't show up at your ER when you tell them you have 30 covid-19 patients.

I disagree with that. We don't know what the outcome would have been had business continued on as usual. Maybe the low number of infections in your neck of the woods is due to social distancing. Maybe business as usual would have allowed the virus to spread like wildfire, as it did in New York. Take a cavalier attitude, and that's what gets you outcomes such as Italy and Spain?


That's exactly the problem. Most people look no further than the ends of their own noses. I'm cynical; I think people are inherently selfish. People worry about themselves--maybe their extended families--but certainly not society as a whole. I'm young enough that even when I catch this it probably won't kill me. But what about my parents? What about a couple of the older people with whom I work? So without some sort of government mandate to stay at home, we have numbskulls partying on the beaches of Florida for Spring Break because nothing's gonna stop them from enjoying Spring Break. They don't understand this is not about you, it's about society as a whole. One problem with this disease is that there are so many asymptomatic carriers, which emboldens people to act in ways that spreads the disease to others who are not so fortunate. People may do what they think is right for them, but to the detriment of others. And that's not a guess--that's cold hard science.

I understand the concern about unconstitutional restriction of civil liberties. I'm willing to give the government a little bit of leeway in this unusual circumstance. But like you, I don't like how the government either gives little/no insight into what parameters or metrics it will take to reopen society (or gives mixed messages such as POTUS vs state vs local governments). I'm also frustrated by how officials seem to give a new reason every couple weeks for maintaining social distancing (or even increasing the restrictions). It's like they haven't thought this whole thing through. I mean, from an epidemiological perspective, didn't their genius advisors consider these scenarios of first wave, flattening the curve, second wave and their rough timelines within about the first week of recognizing this problem? But I guess I shouldn't be surprised, as politicians usually lack foresight in most things.

Thanks

I’d like to hear from them also.

Care to give a report on the situation at your hospital? Up to you, as detail or not as you feel like.

I hear that some the beaches by Jacksonville have opened up.

Thanks

You raise some good points. How far and long can the government go to limiting our concept of American freedom? If a week is OK (for the greater good, you know), how about a month? If a month, then what about 3? Not only can I not congregate, but I can't go for a hike, or to the beach, or to a park even if I'm alone? Where do we draw the line? Until a vaccine is discovered and available in 18-48 months?

First of all, I don't think the justification was flawed. I think it was entirely correct. I think that the incidence of disease and rates of mortality are as low as they are in some places is exactly because of these measures, and not just coincidentally so. This may be a bit of a simplistic explanation, but in a Libertarian/American world we're free to do whatever we want, as long as those activities don't harm others. So if my movements and activities may unwittingly cause others to catch this potentially fatal disease, I can understand how those movements and activities may be limited.

But I don't like how no one in a position of authority is giving us expectations as to what parameters they're looking for in order to declare a resumption of activity. We have nutjobs like our POTUS making statements like Easter because that's a catchy timeline that we all want to hear for our sanity and bank accounts, but is not scientifically realistic or reasonable. At the other extreme we have politicians and officials who offer no insight as to when that will be or what they're looking for to allow us to wake from hibernation. In the middle, we have some that are saying maybe a cautious next month. Well, what do you expect to be different next month to allow you to resume our previous lifestyles? We don't seem to have many (any?) leaders stating "there are the parameters I'm looking for, but I reserve the right to change my decision based upon how this disease plays out in the other 49 states in the country."