[soared]

You can't honestly be saying that we're overreacting to COVID?

I would hope someone in full PPE everyday has a much lower rate of COVID deaths.

The US alone has more than 25% of global cases - comparing Europe to the US doesn't really make sense. They largely beat covid, the US obviously hasn't (see 70k new cases yesterday)

More people die in car crashes than the flu - doesn't mean we don't spend trillions on road safety, seat belts, etc.

Death rates are surging in proportion to cases, with the expected 2 week delay from infection to death. Yesterday Florida had 116 deaths.

CFR isn't the metric that informs policy... its deaths and potential deaths? IE 141,000 Americans dying this year, which were largely avoidable.

[ashtonkem]

Yes, there are still people arguing that this is no big deal. I’m baffled by it.

[rpiguy]

There is no science behind the lockdowns. There is no logic in keeping Walmart open but closing Sears for safety. Yes I believe it is absurd the level to which we have locked down the country.

Some of the states that had the strictest lockdowns, NY, NJ, also had the worst outcomes.

The purpose was never to stop the virus but to slow it.

Growing cases does not concern me. Death rate has blipped up a little but no where near in proportion to the cases.

This is no Tuberculosis, or even Measles.

Time to cautiously carry on and stop cowering.

[dragonwriter]

> Some of the states that had the strictest lockdowns, NY, NJ, also had the worst outcomes.

NYC metro ordered lockdowns after it was hard hit, because it was hit early on before there was a real understanding of what was going on.

A lot of other places still haven’t peaked, the reopening push in response to overall national case decline was driven entirely by NY being past it's peak while the rest of the country combined was still on the upswing.

> Growing cases does not concern me.

The growing list of places at or near ICU capacity should, though.

> Death rate has blipped up a little but no where near in proportion to the cases.

Since the peak death rate was when almost all the cases were in NYC when the NYC health system was overwhelmed, that's unsurprising, we shouldn't see similar death rates in proprtion to cases unless almost all the cases are in similarly overwhelmed locations, which because it hit different places at different times will, even with uncontrolled spread, take a little while.

But with enough cases, you can get a pretty apocalyptic total death toll without going back to the peak death:cases ratio.

[rpiguy]

It is normal for ICUs to be at or near capacity. This is also misleading journalism. Most ICUs are in “surge” cities right now are 20-30% Covid.

Reporting that they are at capacity intimates that they are packed full of Covid patients and overflowing.

[dragonwriter]

> Reporting that they are at capacity intimates that they are packed full of Covid patients and overflowing.

No, it suggests that if the COVID numbers go up, someone who should get ICU treatment, whether COVID or not, won't get it because there won't be capacity. Which is kind of an important fact in places where COVID numbers are trending upward.

[DuskStar]

If your ICU is at 80% capacity, with 20% COVID and 60% everything else, that means you can DOUBLE the number of COVID patients there before running out of space, whereas if all of the patients were COVID patients you could only accommodate an increase of 25%.

Yes, hitting 100% is bad no matter what percent of patients are there because of COVID. But what percent of patients are there for COVID informs how large an increase of cases can be managed.