[_coveredInBees]

Your views seem completely detached from reality. The only reason hospital systems were not overwhelmed was due to the continued lockdown + social distancing policies. Every state that went ahead and tried to ignore reality and open up for business rapidly found itself facing the very same issue again with hospitals being near full and in some cases having to turn away patients.

Some sources:

https://www.azfamily.com/news/continuing_coverage/coronaviru...

https://www.newsweek.com/arizona-hits-record-high-hospital-c...

So no, the lockdown isn't some moving goalpost made by politicians gone wild. It is an unfortunate necessity given the abject failure of the federal administration and many states in managing a very serious public health crisis.

[base698]

^ that was more sensationalism after the death rate started to flatten. The ICU rate then declined after following the death rate. AZ never locked down like CA did.

https://twitter.com/AlexBerenson/status/1291552713004777476

^ Those charts so ICU rates dropping in TX which was supposed to be "Overwhelmed" just like AZ.

[_coveredInBees]

Erm... AZ and TX opened up in May. So not sure how that poorly cropped image with no source justifies your point in any case.

Just look through the data here for AZ:

https://azdhs.gov/preparedness/epidemiology-disease-control/...

Similarly for Texas:

https://www.tmc.edu/coronavirus-updates/total-tmc-covid-19-p...

And pretty much any way you slice it, opening up prematurely resulted in a huge ballooning of cases, deaths and hospital/ICU bed utilization by late June, early July. Perhaps you should look to getting your news from more reliable sources than some dude on twitter with a clear agenda...

It also doesn't help when the Governor of TX was actively hiding data related to hospital bed availability, etc to mask the complete failure of his head-in-the-sand approach to leadership in the time of a major public health emergency [1]

1 - https://www.texastribune.org/2020/07/02/texas-hospital-capac...

[patrick451]

This is not categorically true. E.g., South Dakota is doing fine and never locked down. Same with Wyoming.

Personally, I think the federal administration has done a fine job--most, if not all, of dealing with this situation should be up to the states, not the feds.

[_coveredInBees]

Not sure that those states are "doing fine". Per capita, they have a much higher number of cases and the number of cases are also rising in comparison with states like NY and NJ that had things worse but were aggressive in handling the situation [1].

I mean those states are nowhere near the front lines of where COVID would first strike or spread, but the complete apathy to the threat of COVID is going to have consequences. The numbers are already beginning to show that.

1: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/national/corona...