John_Whittemore on Nostr: Just something worth being aware of… I’m sure most people didn’t see any effect ...
Just something worth being aware of…
I’m sure most people didn’t see any effect of “flattening the curve,” but as an ER doctor it really mattered.
During the first big Covid wave we had cases and deaths in our rural hospital, but due to widespread public participation in minimizing spread we were never overwhelmed. That was the purpose of “flattening the curve.” To keep spread low enough that hospitals would not be overwhelmed.
By the time the second wave came around people were tired of paying attention to masks and distancing, and as a result little hospitals like mine were overwhelmed. I had deathly ill patients in every room and nowhere to send them, because every other hospital was equally overwhelmed. I had to make decisions about who got ventilators and who didn’t. People also died of injuries and illness unrelated to covid that shouldn’t have been fatal just because we were overwhelmed with critical covid patients, and all care was sub-optimal.
I realized most people watching from home on Twitter didn’t live through what I experienced, but perhaps concluding that important prevention messages were a joke because you never saw the effect might be premature.
Plenty of average people might think the things we say here about the importance of privacy and hard money are silly because they’ve never personally noticed the negative effects of privacy invasion and fiat devaluation. Be mindful about belittle something just because you never saw the consequences and you didn’t understand it.
Thanks
I’m sure most people didn’t see any effect of “flattening the curve,” but as an ER doctor it really mattered.
During the first big Covid wave we had cases and deaths in our rural hospital, but due to widespread public participation in minimizing spread we were never overwhelmed. That was the purpose of “flattening the curve.” To keep spread low enough that hospitals would not be overwhelmed.
By the time the second wave came around people were tired of paying attention to masks and distancing, and as a result little hospitals like mine were overwhelmed. I had deathly ill patients in every room and nowhere to send them, because every other hospital was equally overwhelmed. I had to make decisions about who got ventilators and who didn’t. People also died of injuries and illness unrelated to covid that shouldn’t have been fatal just because we were overwhelmed with critical covid patients, and all care was sub-optimal.
I realized most people watching from home on Twitter didn’t live through what I experienced, but perhaps concluding that important prevention messages were a joke because you never saw the effect might be premature.
Plenty of average people might think the things we say here about the importance of privacy and hard money are silly because they’ve never personally noticed the negative effects of privacy invasion and fiat devaluation. Be mindful about belittle something just because you never saw the consequences and you didn’t understand it.
Thanks