holmes435 wrote: ↑Thu Mar 26, 2020 10:45 am
Cooter wrote: ↑Thu Mar 26, 2020 10:34 am
I think a lot of grandmas are going to die what ever we do.
If you flatten the curve, then the prevalence of coronavirus might stay high for a long time, taking us longer to get to the backside of the curve. Thus making it harder for grandmas to avoid the disease.
Grandma catches it in both scenarios. The difference is that she would have a much better chance of having an ICU bed and healthy doctors with a flatter curve.
Just to be clear, not only does grandma/grandpa die, so too will a whole lot of younger folks.
Including the health care workers.
and many will have long term respiratory and cardiovascular damage.
And that's just from the virus directly.
If the health system is overwhelmed, as has happened in Italy, and already beginning to happen in NYC, a whole lot of others suffer and/or die, from inability to get normal good care.
Babies die.
Yes, cooter, the fight is longer if the curve is flattened, but avoidance of system being overwhelmed and the benefit of time to develop and test viral remedies and vaccines will save an awful lot of suffering.
We don't know yet whether heat of summer will provide some respite, but hopefully so. But that means we can expect it back in the fall. Hopefully by then we'll have the testing in place to be able to selectively isolate and quarantine instead of broad brush. And hopefully the vaccine will be available in a year, though that won't deal with the next season. Maybe some anti-viral remedies.