Re:Ask HN: Why are people certain a vaccine with be found fo...
by jjk166 on Friday April 17, 2020 @02:27AM
(#22896742)
There aren't many hospitals that have run out of beds, but that's not the issue.
Many have had to resort to inferior alternatives for PPE as primary supplies have run out and global shortages have made them impossible to restock. The price of melt-blown non-woven fabric, the bottleneck in the production of N95 masks, has increased 10x as the machines to produce more take months to build. In countries like the US, people were initially told not to wear face masks so as to preserve the supply for hospital use; while the decision was not irrational, those countries where face mask usage by the general population was widespread saw much lower infection rates, and while the US has changed course it is still quite probable that if people had masks from the get go we'd be better off.
The shortage of ventilators has required rationing - ie where a patient would normally be put on a ventilator when they had much more mild symptoms (and better odds of survival) they are now delayed until the disease has further progressed. Luckily ventillators from less affected areas have been moved to worse hit ones which has taken the edge off the shortage to a degree.
Testing kits have been an extreme limitation throughout the outbreak. Their low availability meant it was difficult to trace contacts early on, major transport hubs like airports did not have adequate access to screen likely carriers until the disease had already reached most countries, and even now millions of perfectly healthy people are living in fear as the tests which would tell them they'll be fine are reserved for those showing symptoms.
While it has been pushed further than at any point in living memory, the US health system did not collapse; the outbreak has remained within a manageable range. This is true only because of massive measures taken to slow down the outbreak. Millions of people are in lockdown and huge sections of the economy have been either de jure or de facto shut down, which has already evaporated trillions of dollars in wealth, and no price can be put on the lives that have been lost as a result of avoidable infections and inferior medical care. If we were prepared, we wouldn't have had to take those emergency measures to keep the infection rate low enough for the healthcare system to survive.
Many have had to resort to inferior alternatives for PPE as primary supplies have run out and global shortages have made them impossible to restock. The price of melt-blown non-woven fabric, the bottleneck in the production of N95 masks, has increased 10x as the machines to produce more take months to build. In countries like the US, people were initially told not to wear face masks so as to preserve the supply for hospital use; while the decision was not irrational, those countries where face mask usage by the general population was widespread saw much lower infection rates, and while the US has changed course it is still quite probable that if people had masks from the get go we'd be better off.
The shortage of ventilators has required rationing - ie where a patient would normally be put on a ventilator when they had much more mild symptoms (and better odds of survival) they are now delayed until the disease has further progressed. Luckily ventillators from less affected areas have been moved to worse hit ones which has taken the edge off the shortage to a degree.
Testing kits have been an extreme limitation throughout the outbreak. Their low availability meant it was difficult to trace contacts early on, major transport hubs like airports did not have adequate access to screen likely carriers until the disease had already reached most countries, and even now millions of perfectly healthy people are living in fear as the tests which would tell them they'll be fine are reserved for those showing symptoms.
While it has been pushed further than at any point in living memory, the US health system did not collapse; the outbreak has remained within a manageable range. This is true only because of massive measures taken to slow down the outbreak. Millions of people are in lockdown and huge sections of the economy have been either de jure or de facto shut down, which has already evaporated trillions of dollars in wealth, and no price can be put on the lives that have been lost as a result of avoidable infections and inferior medical care. If we were prepared, we wouldn't have had to take those emergency measures to keep the infection rate low enough for the healthcare system to survive.