Why Severe Social Distancing Might Actually Result In More Coronavirus Deaths

[mystery-ak]

    Wuhan Virus

Why Severe Social Distancing Might Actually Result In More Coronavirus Deaths

What the media and policymakers are not telling us is that the longer we delay the development of herd immunity, the more elderly or high-risk people will become infected and die.

By Anonymous
April 3, 2020

COVID-19 is severe. There is no doubt about that. We are now also learning that it is not a matter of if but when many of us will get coronavirus, whether we develop symptoms or not. Our only hope is to “flatten the curve,” relieve stress on the medical system, and wait for a vaccine.

So, we isolate ourselves and stay at home. As a result, the economy is being devastated. Many people are out of work and unhappy. We accept these inconveniences to allow the medical system to handle the many people who become infected.

But what if I were to tell you that our current isolation strategies may actually result in more deaths from coronavirus itself? I’ll explain.

The only way we are going to beat COVID-19 is by developing something called “herd immunity.” Herd immunity basically means that once a certain percentage of the population develops immunity to a virus, the rest of the population will also be protected. That percentage varies, but is often around 60-70 percent. This is why we don’t need to vaccinate 100 percent of people to eradicate or severely limit the spread of infectious diseases (e.g., polio, smallpox, and measles).

The media and policymakers seem to have accepted that we will depend on herd immunity to defeat COVID-19. If we had a vaccine, everything would be different. But since a vaccine is not available, we must wait for enough people to be exposed and develop immunity.

more
https://thefederalist.com/2020/04/03/why-severe-social-distancing-might-actually-result-in-more-coronavirus-deaths/

[Bigun]

There are several people on this site who have been trying to tell you this for weeks!

[conservativevoter]

Why exactly are we being quarantined for THREE FRIGGING weeks (so far)?  Why are we hearing so much about deaths to come AND ventilators (even though they have been 'misplaced' by New York)?

[Bigun]

Why do state of the art hospital ships with more than 2000 beds between them placed that have been placed in New York and Los Angeles currently have a total of 18 patients?

[Smokin Joe]

Why do state of the art hospital ships with more than 2000 beds between them placed that have been placed in New York and Los Angeles currently have a total of 18 patients?

Basically, because those ships are set up to handle trauma patients (battlefield wounds) and not infectious diseases. The bunks are configured for the former, not isolation units. 
When trauma, and not disease is the concern, you can have a lot more beds and will have different facilities than you would if you had a floating hospital focused on the plague.

If New Yorkers weren't in lockdown and self-isolating, and were instead operating as usual, there would be more gunshot wounds, blunt instrument injuries, construction accidents, and car crash victims to deal with--the basic trauma load the hospital ships were there to relieve the land based hospitals of so they could deal with the COVID-19 cases on land.