[mike_d]

> In most places, hospital are not overloaded

If you speak to any doctor or nurse they will disagree with you. While we might not be at a breaking point for number of beds, the staff that have to put themselves in harms way do have the option to just quit. When that starts happening in mass we are all screwed.

[txsoftwaredev]

I spoke with a nurse while at gym I attend. She spoke about how the hospital she's at is not close to be overwhelmed. She also talked about she doesn't wear a mask outside of her job as they have training and n95 masks which work in a hospital setting. But outside of a hospital environment the masks provide little protection, especially cloth masks.

[taejo]

> But outside of a hospital environment the masks provide little protection, especially cloth masks.

My experience of talking to medical professionals is that they consider a number like 50% reduction in infections "very little protection", because they (correctly) would use a mask providing 99% protection or whatever in any situation where real protection was needed. But outside of a hospital setting, epidemiologically, a 50% or even 20% reduction in reproduction number makes a big difference to the overall dynamics of an outbreak.

[qqqwerty]

A nurse at a gym? Perhaps there is a bit of selection bias in your sample.

Meanwhile, here is a pretty good article about how healthcare workers are handling the pandemic: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/11/third-sur...

As additional anecdata, the sentiments expressed in the article are in line with what I have been hearing from healthcare professionals in my circle of friends.

[dboreham]

Fox News watching nurse?

[matz1]

Yes I do have couple of nurse friend and doctor, they all thought lockdown measure is way overkill and all this has been greatly overblown. Not to mention the excessive ppe measure/protocol they now have to adopt, its only made their job harder.

[simonbarker87]

I know many doctors and nurses and they are exhausted, over worked and thankful it didn’t get worse than it was

To say that lock down was needless because the worst case scenario isn’t proof the lock down wasn’t needed. It is evidence (not proof mind) that the lockdowns worked.

It’s like saying you didn’t need to save money because you never ran out of money so you didn’t need the savings in the first place

[matz1]

If the healthcare worker is overworked, then the hospital should hire more worker.

Its not like there is not enough healthcare worker looking for employment all over the country.

The lockdown was needless because it is worse than the risk if covid.

[edmundsauto]

They are paying nurses up to $10k per week to travel and work in covid wards. Let me assure you, in America, we have a great shortage of skilled healthcare workers.

[matz1]

And yet the hospital laying off and furloughing worker

[lawnchair_larry]

No it isn’t

[nradov]

The unemployment rate for licensed healthcare providers is very low. There are really no extra physicians out there.

[matz1]

And yet the hospital laying off and furloughing worker.

[simonbarker87]

Perhaps your country has a wash of unemployed healthcare workers just waiting in reserve for “their moment” but in the UK there is a shortage of skilled healthcare professionals and we can’t train them as fast as we need them.