In the beginning of the pandemic, the benchmark for what the government should do as far as lockdowns was whether the hospitals were being overrun. But at this point, this news seems to not be getting much attention, or maybe I just haven’t been seeing it.
This is in Axios, so it has a political bent, but overwhelmed hospitals could lead to more patients dying regardless of the politics.
45,921,698 total cases
1,193,909 dead
33,252,218 recovered
In the US:
9,316,297 total cases
235,159 dead
6,024,512 recovered
Yesterday’s numbers for comparison:
Also as I said: the milestones are going to be coming a lot quicker now. For instance, today the US had its first 6-figure single day new case increase with 101,461 new cases.
Given that we are now approaching a full year into this thing, and given that we apparently have no shortage of money, worldwide, to throw at this thing, is it really conscionable that a lack of hospital capacity would be what killed people?
What’s the relevance of your question?
You said overwhelmed hospitals could lead to more patients dying. I asked how we could allow ourselves to let hospitals to get overwhelmed by this stage, when we’ve had at least six months to fully see it coming. That’s not fatigue, that’s not politicization. That’s reckless negligence. And it’s no excuse.
So instead of people simply wearing masks and not going to gyms and motorcycle rallies, you think we should have been building new temporary hospitals all over everywhere just in case? And you can predict exactly where they’re going to be needed?
Bear in mind, SayTwo’s … ideas seem calculated to cause maximum economic and public health damage. For his purposes, that idea is perfectly reasonable.
I can’t tell you how painful it is to see, over and over and over again, such a considerable portion of the public believe that if we would just wear masks (and not go to gyms or rallies - or protests?) then the virus would magically go away. It’s like kids that believe in Santa Claus. Cute for a while, I guess, but at some point that kid needs to grow up. I saw an article yesterday, from some school of medicine, that tried to demonstrate an effect of masks in certain counties in Tennessee versus others, and it came to the same conclusion. But it also, in the same article, claimed that mask use is already over 80%. I know that it is closer to 100% in many places that are nowhere near stamping out the virus. I do not understand the willful blindness to the reality that is all around us. It’s painful to watch. The distortions these people are making to rational and scientific thought we will spend years if not decades trying to recover from.
What I think, to answer your question, is that to put all our eggs in the basket of ‘saved by the masks!’, instead of maturely and soberly facing the reality that evidently we all believe is coming, to hear the hysterical warnings from health officials all over, and ramp up health care capacity over the course of six months of seeing it coming, is nothing less than criminal, in every jurisdiction. That’s ‘exactly where it’s going to be needed’. And if any public health officials don’t believe that and believe that they can count on masks to do the jobs they are supposed to be doing, then they have abdicated every sacred responsibility they have, and they should be held accountable. To not have a plan for patients at this stage, November 2020 and with the relatively small proportion of beds needed for covid cases as compared to earlier in the year in many places and as compared to all other illnesses now, is unconscionable. Unconscionable.
Boy, you’re not kidding.
In the meantime, I think we’re hijacking this thread - it should be about breaking news, after all.
We can move the conversation and no one even needs to start a pit thread . . . 'cause there’s already one going!
Who thought a year ago when we saw the horrible pictures out of Italy with “hospitalized” patients on the hallway floors, that we would eventually catch up to them?
To not have knocked this virus out yet because we refuse to wear masks because “freedom” or some other nonsense is unconscionable.
Okay. I stopped reading at the word “magically.” 
No one is saying anything about magic. Bye-bye.
Well, when you have things like this:
To not have knocked this virus out yet because we refuse to wear masks because “freedom” or some other nonsense is unconscionable.
Then you have people who apparently believe in magic. I don’t think there is any serious scientist alive who thinks that universal mask wearing is all it would take to eliminate the virus.
But maybe by ‘knock it out’ he meant mitigate it a bit. Maybe by ‘refuse to wear masks’ he was giving just one example, out of many things he thinks it would take to knock it out. I can’t speak for him. But I sure hope so. Because otherwise that’s like believing in Santa Claus.
Nobody ever fucking said that’s all it would take. it’s about reducing spread which has a multiplying effect in reducing new cases.
I should hope not! But I sure read it a lot on this board.
Let’s see a few posts. In context.
Start with the one I just now mentioned.
Which one?