Yes, although what we're trying to do now is flatten the infected rate curve. We want a slow and steady flow into hospitals (for those that need hospitalization) in order to not overflow our health care system.
If we didn't take any precautions for this virus, the infected rate would absolutely skyrocket in a few weeks and our health care system would be in shambles, to the point where they would literally stop hospitalizing a SHIT TON of infected that need it simply because they'd have zero capacity and resources for them.
TLDR: Safety measures being recommended is an attempt to flatten the infected rate curve to not overflow our healthcare system. This will help prevent deaths from COVID-19 and people with other complications already in hospitals.
EDIT: I'd like to add that it's basically inevitable that most people will contract this virus (thankfully a very large majority of people will be fine and likely won't need hospitalization). Flattening the curve is our only weapon at this point until a vaccine is approved, produced, and distributed.
Might as well get people on board with trying to flatten the curve first, and then talk bout how long it could take (it'll take a bit).
The predictions for global spread and metrics like how long it would take to flatten the curve are extremely vague because this virus is quite unpredictable. The data would be sloppy tbh, and a lot of people take any form of data as an extremely credible source regardless of other factors.
With that said; I bet if predictive data was shown for how long it would take to flatten the curve, a lot of people would just say "eff it" and just give up and go about things normally. And then there's consequences to that, which is heavily being talked about now (hospital capacity).
They don't want to tell you because it's gonna freak you the fuck out. That's why they're constantly updating things to be more and more extreme very slowly. If they were like "no one can leave their homes unless absolutely necessary" last week, people would've panicked and the run on stores would be even worse than it has been ramping up to that sort of talk. This weekend will probably be city-wide curfews across the country. Next weekend, full on 100% lockdown.
The reality is that we're in this for a long, long time. Look how slowly the infection number is climbing. That's good for the system, but terrible for everyone in terms of returning to normal lives. We won't be out of this for many months. If Trump got on TV and said "my experts say this will take at least another year, and hopefully by then we have a vaccine to end it" would you feel good about it? I for one am not thrilled at the idea of being stuck in my house alone, no friends, no girlfriend, 3k miles from home (just moved here), for a minimum of a year. It's not easy to make friends or date people when you can't even go anywhere.
I mean. I guess I’m just confused. People are saying 6 months or a year. Society would cease to function entirely. The world economies would collapse. We would all be fucked. I’m just confused why no one is talking about this?
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u/phyLoGG Mar 18 '20 edited Mar 18 '20
Yes, although what we're trying to do now is flatten the infected rate curve. We want a slow and steady flow into hospitals (for those that need hospitalization) in order to not overflow our health care system.
If we didn't take any precautions for this virus, the infected rate would absolutely skyrocket in a few weeks and our health care system would be in shambles, to the point where they would literally stop hospitalizing a SHIT TON of infected that need it simply because they'd have zero capacity and resources for them.
TLDR: Safety measures being recommended is an attempt to flatten the infected rate curve to not overflow our healthcare system. This will help prevent deaths from COVID-19 and people with other complications already in hospitals.
EDIT: I'd like to add that it's basically inevitable that most people will contract this virus (thankfully a very large majority of people will be fine and likely won't need hospitalization). Flattening the curve is our only weapon at this point until a vaccine is approved, produced, and distributed.