Re:U.S. will suspend all travel from Europe for 30 days
by olliej on Wednesday March 11, 2020 @09:47PM
(#22552742)
As others have commented the goal at this point is curve flattening.
What is "flattening" in this case? it's attempting to limit the peak concurrent cases. There will likely not be a hugely significant reduction in total cases, but that isn't the goal.
The reason this is important is because no matter where you are, healthcare systems have a finite limit to the number of people they can treat at once, and if you exceed that you'll get a massive increase in mortality - both due to "survivable". cases not being treated, as well as unrelated medical events that don't get treated because there isn't capacity, e.g. you have a stroke, but there's no ED or ICU beds available.
What is "flattening" in this case? it's attempting to limit the peak concurrent cases. There will likely not be a hugely significant reduction in total cases, but that isn't the goal.
The reason this is important is because no matter where you are, healthcare systems have a finite limit to the number of people they can treat at once, and if you exceed that you'll get a massive increase in mortality - both due to "survivable". cases not being treated, as well as unrelated medical events that don't get treated because there isn't capacity, e.g. you have a stroke, but there's no ED or ICU beds available.