…why would you figure that?
This isn’t a surge for influenza season. It’s a global pandemic. You aren’t new to this forum . Surely by now you would know the difference.
Because I imagine there is someone whose job it is to consider such a scenario. Or at least I hope there is.
…the answer of course is to flatten the curve. Protect healthcare workers so they don’t get sick. Make sure they get provided with the ppe they need. Lockdown if needed to stop community spread. Social distancing and masks.
But you already knew all of this. We’ve been discussing since the start of the pandemic. You can’t just magic up hospital staff out of thin air. No matter how hard you imagine there isn’t someone out there with a secret plan to save the hospitals. It’s a matter of looking after the people you have.
Apparently, the hospitals all report this to the federal government, which isn’t even giving the information to the states for planning, let alone to the public. 
Yup. We can’t just double hospital capacity. Not if we want to staff those hospitals. We need to reduce “surges”, perhaps with targeted lock-downs as well as routine use of masks and hand washing. And we need to protect the medical staff we have with ample PPE.
I believe we can (and to some extent have) ramp up production of PPE. I hope hospitals are stockpiling what they need.
Yes, we can stockpile PPE and other supplies.
We can’t stockpile doctors and nurses, which seems to be what SayTwo seems to be thinking of.
Yup. But stockpiling PPE helps preserve the supply of medical staff we already have. Doctors, nurses, trained aids, technicians, etc.
yup, no doubt about that. I’m just saying that while we can do physical supplies on short notice, we can’t just scale up the medical personnel - which leads to the “flatten the curve” approach, to conserve and protect the personnel who are essential.
It is also pretty clear that we can’t scale up PPE at the snap of our fingers. I assume we are in a better position than March I don’t assume it’s an unassailable position.
Just to join the chorus responding to @ThelmaLou - it is of note because the conclusion made, the interpretation presented, is inconsistent with a whole wide variety of other data out there, not just other studies following index cases within households.
Specific to the risk of household transmission from children: In this report there were a grand total of five child index cases under 12 years old and within a couple of days 9 of 17 other household members also tested positive. They conclude that children under 12 transmit within households at a rate of 53%, much higher than other studies have seen, higher than teens did in the report, and comparable to adults 18 to 49.
It is somewhat akin to if we today got a poll from a generally reputable firm that suddenly showed Trump ahead in Pennsylvania with a wide variety of other polling done by a variety of other reputable houses with various techniques saying Biden is up 5 to 6 points. You don’t throw it out but neither do you assume it is the correct one. It could be that they are correct and that all the rest is wrong, or, as they note, it could be that “other household members were infected concurrently but developed symptoms at different times or remained asymptomatic”.
Meanwhile whether or not their conclusion is correct there is public health utility in the bottom line they use it to emphasize. Yes, the messaging has been that “persons should self-isolate …” etc. for a long time, but that is often in real world simply not done, and it is especially challenging* within a household containing children under 12.
*Here’s how that plays out in the real world. A young school age child is positive, asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic. Parent(s) (and other household members, including other young children) are now “close contacts”, therefore all are advised to self-isolate for 14 days after last exposure (masked or not but should be wearing masks whenever in common spaces) to the child within the child’s quarantine period, which is a minimum of 10 days, totalling 24 days of self-isolation, while their kids need care in their separate isolations …
Just to be clear, England has not yet started lockdown - one has been announced, but it will not start until 4th Nov (at one minute after midnight, I believe). Here’s detail of the lockdown.
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Former UK Conservative Party leader Iain Duncan Smith is criticizing the current government for giving in to the scientists.
Taiwan just passed 200 days without a domestic transmission. We get many new cases from people returning home from overseas but they have been able to prevent further transmission.
Life is pretty normal, we went to a concert two weeks ago and while everyone was masked there were hundreds in attendance.
The kindergarten I work at requires masks as does public transportation but most stores do not.
We keep hoping it remains contained.
46,823,570 total cases
1,205,321 dead
33,756,959 recovered
In the US:
9,473,911 total cases
236,471 dead
6,103,605 recovered
Yesterday’s numbers for comparison:
Certainly not on a large scale, but I do have one example.
My friend’s wife is a registered nurse (I don’t remember her specialty), and has kept up her credentials, but has been staying home with the children the last 16 years. She was notified in March that she is considered reserve and will be called to work, if it is necessary. So far she has not been called up.
The military (Switzerland has conscription) has put their people on notice, again, that they will called up to provide support. In March it was planned that they would build the temporary facilities, and then keep the facilities supplied and clean. They won’t be handling patients directly, as far has I remember.
Two cantons have requested help from the military in the past few days.
Not sure if serious.
You realize that’s from over a month ago, don’t you?
There was. Trump fired them - Did Trump Administration Fire the US Pandemic Response Team? Snopes says True.
I did not, but yes, now I do. Guess that’s not breaking news!
You know, I would hope that every single hospital of any size has some kind of competent management that accepts the responsibility to plan for whatever eventualities may come its way. And every city, and state. The federal government can screw things up as bad as it possibly can, and I’d still hope that at the state level on down the attitude wouldn’t be ‘welp, there it went, nothing we can do on our own’.
In other words, I ain’t buyin’ it.