[seeTheAstroturf]

Medical spends literally billions of dollars to regulate out competition. Then they can't handle demand. Blame them and corrupt politicians.

Also pandemics mean either 70 percent of people will catch it, or we need a vaccine. Why even quarentine?

Flatten the curve so we can die on ventilators instead?

[saalweachter]

The statistics I've seen floating around lately are that ~80% of people who go on the ventilators die.

But keep in mind that 20% of the people who go on the ventilators live. Flattening the curve means that, if you reach the point of requiring a ventilator -- and we haven't run out of ventilators -- your chance of survival goes from 0% to 20%. It's not 100% or even 50%, but it's a lot better than 0%.

[SuoDuanDao]

I'm not surprised you're being downvoted. Of all the institutions that are on shaky ground these days, the medical ones are the ones who should most consider an overhaul as a result of this fiasco. Unfortunately, they seem too concerned with protecting their monopoly to accept any criticism or suggestions.

[monadgonad]

Flatten the curve so that much fewer people will die until a vaccine can be developed.

[lbeltrame]

It's much better to bet on the drugs. A vaccine will take years to be fully available (let's not forget we have just two phase 1 studies going, the efficacy is still yet to be determined): drugs, if the current or upcoming trials are successful, probably within the end of the year.

And like the drugs, a vaccine may not be successful at all. What do we do in that case?

This is a problem for the ICUs only because there is no specific treatment. If we can treat it like we can treat other grave diseases, the impact becomes smaller and more manageable.