Re:Miscalculation at every level left U.S. unequipped to fig...
by nomel on Thursday April 30, 2020 @12:59AM
(#23027585)
There are only about 7,300 ICU beds in California [1]. If we're at 20%, that's only about two doublings before people start being rejected for care. In March, we were seeing a doubling every few days, with ICU requirements following [2].
I'm not disagreeing that we need to let people be infected if we want to achieve herd immunity, but I think it's a tough choice in deciding which portion of the population you put out to partially die, since letting everyone out at once will result in some high R0 value again, and a vaccine may be on the way. These politicians are in a lose-lose situation here. Anything they do will result in someone being harmed.
I'm not disagreeing that we need to let people be infected if we want to achieve herd immunity, but I think it's a tough choice in deciding which portion of the population you put out to partially die, since letting everyone out at once will result in some high R0 value again, and a vaccine may be on the way. These politicians are in a lose-lose situation here. Anything they do will result in someone being harmed.
[1] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/clinical-guida...
[2] https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/03/28/coronavirus-gov-newso...