The Hill: The data is in - stop the panic, end the total isolation

[Bt1 5,213]

3 hours ago, Eighteen said:

well speaking from someone from a small state with comparatively little COVID infections even at the peak, i've seen steadily ballooning numbers dwindle down to almost nothing where i live because of the lockdown. but that being said, there are still small clusters of outbreaks in my community even with the lockdown in place (one at a fast food restaurant chain where about 12 people were infected; another instance at a medical facility where 1 person went to work sick, getting about 15 others sick). now if there weren't a lockdown in place and people were behaving normally, those two clusters, i think it's safe to assume, could have really exploded into something much worse. 

of course, if the US had enough testing and a strong response apparatus, it could theoretically employ the south korean method, where they did not have to close down society bc they tested a lot of people per capita and immediately isolated those who were positive; but as far as i know, the US doesn't have the level of testing to be able to do that yet. 

now i know people are saying that maybe covid's mortality rate is about that of the flu, and maybe that's true, idk yet, but i can say that i have never heard of the flu filling up hospitals as badly as covid is. one thing to take into consideration i think is how contagious COVID is. so what i'm thinking is that while COVID may have the same mortality rate as the flu, because of how contagious it is, much more people will need hospital because much more people will become sick with it. and so far, US hospitals have been more or less able to keep up with the sick, keeping the mortality rate down by giving medical attention to everyone who needs it. but you can imagine how it would have been should the infection spread wider than it did, clogging up hospitals and therefore allowing much more people to die because there weren't enough beds. 

 

 

While I understand your points of view, unfortunately you are still making assumptions.

For example when you talk about those people infected at that fast food restaurant, you make a correct assumption. The lockdown probably helped. But that shouldn't be the question. The question should be if the same results couldn't have been achieved with other measures like wearing masks, keeping a minimum distance between people. 

You are wrong again with the health care system not being overwhelmed with flu epidemics in the past. Here and there, there have been problems with flu epidemics. In Italy, they had some serious problems almost every year. You can find studies online. Before corona, there were articles about how bad the flu season was at the end of 2019 in Italy. Thats why some scientists ask what happened with the deaths from other causes.

Here is another article about patients being treated in tents from 2 years ago in US. 

https://time.com/5107984/hospitals-handling-burden-flu-patients/

I'm not saying that this isnt more serious. I'm pointing out that there are a lot of question marks and no official answers and it is wrong to make assumptions with this. 

Another problem is that some people simply dont want to talk about the effects of lockdowns or admit how dangerous they are for different categories. This isnt a choice between lifes and money. Money means food. Money means healthcare. Home means for some people abuse or loneliness. 

It is important to fight with balance this. If we dont, we will make more harm than good. I think that's what the world is doing right now. That's my opinion.