If saving lives (or reducing deaths) is the goal, then considerations of all causes are in order.
COVID-19 is not the only killer on the loose right now.
Here’s just one small example:
Did you know that heart attacks spike every year at Daylight Savings? Hospitals report a 24% increase the Monday after the Springtime switch. They also report a 21% dip the Monday after the Fall reversal.
That’s from just 1 hour of altered sleep.
How much physical and psychological impact do you think occurs from an imposed economic shutdown that threatens the livelihoods of the masses? Losing your job and endangering your family is far more jarring than a single hour of sleep loss on a single night of the year.
But the repercussions of this shutdown reach into myriad other avenues of devastation and death.
To pretend that we’re on a course to eradicate this virus by huddling in our bunkers and not coming out until it’s gone is insane — unscientific, irrational, and contradictory to the medical experts’ initial call for curve flattening.
Our aim in taking the hit of temporary closure was to not overwhelm our hospital systems and thus spare loss of life from those unable to be treated due to limited capacity concerns. The vast majority of hospital systems never came close to capacity. A targeted few were temporarily maxed out (social distancing + rapid resource response worked).
For those locales still at or near capacity, local decisions can and should be made to (a) expand capacity and (b) continue the slow spread.
For everyone and everywhere else, this is not the case. The cure, as they say, is becoming (or already is) worse than the disease.
And “the cure” is not for the disease itself. It’s for the avoidance of overrun medical facilities. The actual victory over the disease will come from healthy immune systems — from antibodies to the virus in a significant proportion of the population. This requires exposure.
What is happening now, though, is what typically happens from protected central seats of control: overreach and political power plays. Opportunistic authorities ignore rationality (and even medical guidance) and flex their governing power to see what all they can get away with.
After all, governmental power only exists when there is a needy people to govern (whether those needs are actual or merely perceived).
This is not “conspiracy theory.” This is human nature and this is history lived out.
As the author in this thread aptly states:
“I enjoy studying history, but I have no interest in seeing the French Revolution part deux in this country. All y’all who think you can condescendingly lecture people who are genuinely worried about keeping their homes and feeding their families are trying to light that match.”
@physicsgeek
Actions have consequences. None of us can escape that reality.