> The lockdown was a reasonable decision at the time when there was a belief that we had a ventilator gap, because nobody bothered to read the papers written by Chinese doctors on how ventilators don't work (66% to 90% mortality.)

> And we should re-evaluate the information we have and end the lockdown.

ICU beds are another constraint, on top of ventilator access. Though I'd be curious to know from an expert whether ventilators are completely futile.

Reasons it might still be good to maintain a lockdown:

- subsequent waves may reduce mortality rates and severity, as the virus evolves to become more transmissable (i.e., dead people are an evolutionary dead-end for the virus)

- contracting the virus may have enduring adverse effects, where it is better to not have it, than to develop immunity through exposure (0)(1)

- ICU availability, above and beyond ventilators, for caring for the most affected patients could reduce mortality rate

Keep in mind, young people are dying from this virus. There was an article on HN recently from one of the doctors in Wuhan, claiming that the symptoms have a later onset (~1 week) than typical pneumonia, at which point lungs are half affected and this can have deadly consequences(2). Maybe you'd wish that on yourself, but what about your parents/grandparents/children/close friends?

(0) https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2020-04-10/coronavirus...

(1) https://khn.org/news/mysterious-heart-damage-not-just-lung-t...

(2) https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1005474/I%20Spent%20Seven%20W...

I haven't seen anything about the claims you're making that ventilators don't work. Is this only available in Chinese or is there any reporting/papers available in English?

[Edit] Are you referring to these news reports https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/08/doctors-say-ventilators-... ? If yes I think you're overstating what these news reports are saying by claiming "ventilators don't work" (in fact the reports are saying the data may be more complicated but ventilators are still needed).

Official Chinese numbers at the end of January reported ~5% of infected requiring respirator, less than 2.5% surviving it.

Do you have a source? Is 2.5% here of those needing a respirator or total infected?

> we (the US) still don't have adequate testing or tracing capabilities, and no cure in sight.

this is what is crazy. the u.s. has quite literally made the decision to make the effects of this virus the worst possible ones and to let them linger in both space and time. the whole response is to lie and divert and half ass everything such that infections and deaths keep rising, unemployment skyrockets, the economy tanks, etc. it is really despicable, and i am seriously beginning to worry about being in the u.s. through the next six months.

i mean, did the u.s. even consider trying to learn from even a single other country? it is really showcasing the vast systemic problems we have in this country that everyone talks about but then dismisses and then ignores. our government and support structure is wholly fragmented, and we have corporations rushing in thinking they can save the day. meanwhile, countries with universal healthcare, welfare, and support structures are breezing through this.

Not to be glib, but 9 of the 12 countries with higher death rates than the USA, measuring in deaths per million people, have universal-type healthcare. And as far as economic metrics go, it is too soon to tell, but we are all probably equally in trouble. All the news I can find indicates all of Europe is teetering on a knife’s edge financially. Also, for deaths per confirmed cases, the US is barely in the top 50 countries and preceded by numerous countries with universal healthcare. So countries with universal health care are definitely not “breezing through this”. I am personally pro social welfare programs, but let’s agree that all governments handled this situation poorly. Universal health care and social welfare programs are not a panacea.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/coronavirus/

- the numbers appear to be accurate.

thanks for the detailed response. your counterpoints and data are helpful. what i meant by "support structures" is a sort of catch all for governments that are additionally well organized and prepared beyond just having universal healthcare and social welfare. south korea and many of the other east asian countries fall into this. it seems they were simply explicitly prepared, with the correct organizations and policies in place, to handle this due to past experiences in addition with a culture that is collective enough to adapt in real-time.

i suppose south korea is who i primarily had in mind.

> meanwhile, countries with universal healthcare, welfare, and support structures are breezing through this.

Name me a country with universal healthcare with a lower COVID-19 death rate per capita than the US.

Canada. Ontario has a per-capita death rate of <2 per 100000. New York State is at 32 (~17x higher) with Ontario having ~75% of the population of New York State. I'm sure this changes when you start looking at urban areas but I suspect the stats hold up pretty well.

[1] USA breakdown https://www.statista.com/statistics/1109011/coronavirus-covi... [2] Google summarizes the Wikipedia data for the Canadian rates

are you asking deaths per capita or death rate? i don't know what death rate per capita quantifies.

in either case, that's easy: south korea, germany, denmark.