First of all, we need to go over the idea of what it meant to “flatten the curve.”
In epidemiology, the idea of slowing a virus’ spread so that fewer people need to seek treatment at any given time is known as “flattening the curve.” It explains why so many countries are implementing “social distancing” guidelines — including a “shelter in place” order that affects 6.7 million people in Northern California, even though COVID-19 outbreaks there might not yet seem severe.
The faster the infection curve rises, the quicker the local health care system gets overloaded beyond its capacity to treat people. As we’re seeing in Italy, more and more new patients may be forced to go without ICU beds, and more and more hospitals may run out of the basic supplies they need to respond to the outbreak.
A flatter curve, on the other hand, assumes the same number of people ultimately get infected, but over a longer period of time. A slower infection rate means a less stressed health care system, fewer hospital visits on any given day and fewer sick people being turned away.
In the language of calculus, the internal of each curve from beginning to end is the same, the difference is the simultaneous number of cases at the peak.
With the curve flattened, there will still be sick people. New people will be infected and some will die. However, the number of survivors should be better with a flatter curve because the number of sick at any one time does not overwhelm the ability of our health care system to take care of them.
Social distancing and the shutdown was supposed to last until the curve started to flatten.
It seems that in most of the country the curve never peaked. Other than a few localized hotspots (NYC, Detroit, NOLA) hospitals were not swamped. The doomsday scenario of people dying of Coronavirus, lying in hospital hallways because there were not enough beds and rooms and ventilators never materialized. In many places, hospitals have had to furlough workers as they delayed and canceled all non-immediately live-saving procedures.
The rest of America was held hostage by New York City. We couldn’t go back to work until they flattened their curve, and that appears to be finally happening.
However, just as this nightmare is coming to an end, the goalposts have been moved.
It’s no longer about flattening the curve to prevent our hospitals from being overrun. It’s about staying in lockdown until there is a vaccine or there are no new cases.
This is a ridiculous standard to try and achieve.
Consider that yesterday oil dropped to negative $40 per barrel.
The energy sector is about 9% of our GDP. Some of our largest companies are oil and gas producers and refiners. Overall, oil and gas supports 9.8 million jobs or 5.6% of all US jobs.
Only god knows what this will do to the economy.
This happened entirely because of the lockdown. People are not traveling, planes are not flying, driving is way down, and the consumption of goods made from plastics derived from petroleum is down.
The government shut us down and the oil industry in America died. That has never happened before.
We need to go back to work. We need to go back to normal. This lockdown cannot continue as-is for much longer or we will guarantee the destruction of our economy fro a generation.
Some very brave and enterprising people have started to protest the lockdown and want what we were promised. A reopening of America now that the curve has flattened.
How has the Left responded? Threatening those people with death and imprisonment.
If you exercise your First Amendment rights, the government can deny you health care. This really is a rining endorsement for government controlled health care. This is exactly what the Chinese do with their social credit system.
April Ryan is not alone in this.
I thought the Nazis were bad? Funny how the Left suddenly wants to emulate them.
This is an impossible standard. There is no way to prevent anyone from ever catching the Coronavirus ever again.
DOWN WITH THE FIRST AMENDMENT!
Petitioning your government for a redress of grievances to go back to work is the same as Al Qaeda.
The only reason to protest wanting to go back to work is because you are a racist and you should be punished for that.
Arrest people for wanting to go back to work.
Only stupid people want to go back to work. Small business owners who are going bankrupt are just illiterate idiots.
She’s just making shit up.
This goes along with the identifying badge. God the Left really love Nazi Germany right now, even if they hate Swastikas.
The Left has moved the goalposts to keep the economy shut down in perpetuity, and if you protest you deserve to get arrested and die.
The Coronavirus has really brought out their inner tyrant.
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