Which is just as anecdotal. The virus doesn't spread everywhere at once, and there are a lot of places in the country/world that aren't NYC/North Jersey yet. If they have similar population density and do a similar job of social isolation then what magic do you suggest will make the outcomes different there?
" social isolation then what magic do you suggest will make the outcomes different there?"
If you'd bother to consider outside the narrow confines of the USA you might want to consider what 'magic' the Singaporean, Hong Kong and S. Korean systems are using because they are considerably more dense and doing really well. Sweden is also dong 'kind of ok' without any lock-down.
The real issue however is the suppression of people's right to communicate and gather, even if online.
We have a situation in which the nation is forcibly locked into their homes, and large conglomerates are suppressing further their ability to communicate. This is existentially disturbing.
The most important right we have is to effectively gather and confer with one another, because the first thing authoritarian regimes want to do is stop people form 'meeting to figure out how to get rid of the regime'.
I wish the protestors would practice better social distancing, and I do think we should remain locked-down, but I absolutely support their right to voice their concerns.
In fact the government should be doing much more to mollify concerns over freedom of movement and expression etc, legislating limits to such rules, requiring oversight etc..
Recall that the outbreak started in central Europe weeks before the USA locked down. Even in the harder hit countries, there are quiet hospitals almost everywhere. Look at Switzerland - it shares a huge land border with northern Italy and has large numbers of people who move across the borders, it volunteered to take Italian patients in. Swiss hospitals are receiving financial bailouts because they're so quiet, it's on the downcurve for a long time now yet it has never implemented house arrest (just closing shops and other gathering places). Even the Italians didn't need to send Ticino patients in the end.
There's a lot of experience with this right now. There are a few cities or local hotspots where for unclear reasons the disease hits harder than the vast majority of places. But even in those harder hit places field hospitals are hardly used.
It is incredibly bad news that Facebook is attempting to interfere with the social processes of figuring out when lockdown should end right now - and yes, that includes protests. There's no evidence lawmakers have any better insight into what's going on than anyone else, and quite a bit of evidence they may have worse insight. Silicon Valley needs to butt out or see its reputation sink the journalism-like lows.
I got some news for you: these protests seem to be indirectly financed by powerful politicians.
https://www.salon.com/2020/04/16/conservative-grouplinked-to...
Really, think about what you're implying here - that Americans somehow care so little about being placed under house arrest that they'd need to be paid to turn up to a protest about it? That's not the America I know.
As for "conservative group with links to conservative politicians", given the vague nature of the term "links" that's going to encompass a vast number of politically active people in the country. There's nothing surprising or sinister about people who distrust centralised state power organising protests against totalitarian actions. It's exactly what you'd expect to see.
Yes, I'm sure dark money funded protestors who blocked ambulances from going to hospitals have better insight than anyone else. What a load of nonsense.
Facebook is a private platform. It can moderate how it pleases.
Absolutely not; it is highly regulated (probably should be more so), subject to constitutional concerns, ongoing legislation and pressures.
1) Your anecdote is not consistent with the national concern - it's local to your area.
My father is currently in a hospital for an unrelated reason and it's almost empty -> they are 'prepared for war' and there isn't a single COVID patient in the entire area, let alone hospital. They are all empty.
The vast majority of hospitals in the US are not warzones they are quiet.
"The general opinion is that the system can't handle much additional strain, and I don't think any of us are in a position to argue the point with them. "
Yes - we are! Your local hospital is not 'the system'. We have to take this into consideration.
2) It's disingenuous to somehow imply that 'because some hospitals are busy' that this means 'all doctors think we must be locked-down, everywhere' and more importantly, that people should not be able to protest the lockdown, or that major media outlets should be suppressing this.
3) In the fact of a lot of different variables, people absolutely have the right to come to their own conclusions, and protest, and certainly to drum up support for said protests.
Edit: to be clear, I agree with the lock-downs, but we really should not be suppressing people's will to express themselves. I see a lot of doctors talking about policies without a real instinct as to how existentially destructive they are. Folks we are printing money as never before seen in history, there was a 'fire in the engines' and so we shut them off, but we are now headed straight down to the earth, very quickly. We have to be conscious of that and look very hard at other things (Korea, Sweden etc.) and be real smart about it.