[nostromo]

> the intention behind the restrictions was simply to not overwhelm the medical system

This is my point. When the medical system wasn’t overwhelmed, the restrictions should have been eased, but weren’t in many places. The goal posts were moved dramatically.

[thomasz]

The window between an overwhelmed health care system and a suppressed epidemic is extremely thin. We simply cannot dial in exactly the right reproduction number to get this over with in a reasonable time frame without overloading the available hospitals. Even the Swedish approach has caused massive economic damages, and even then they are still in the early stages of their epidemic.