Comment by DanBC | Hacker News Reader

Comment by DanBC | Hacker News Reader

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People keep banging on about who dies.

That's not the point.

Hospitals become overwhelmed with people who need an ICU bed, and a ventilator, and oxygen, and intubation, for weeks. Sure, they go on to recover, but while they're in those beds it means the health system can't provide other treatment. All those hips and knees go un-replaced; a bunch of cancer care gets cancelled; people involved in accidents go without care. Even if you ignore anyone over 80[1] you still have hospitals full of people who need intensive care.

Watch this video. It's not 80 year olds lying on the floors. This is in Spain, a country with a world-class healthcare system: https://twitter.com/shuja_2006/status/1242161754768953344?s=...

This video shows a mix of ages. https://twitter.com/WellingMichael/status/124145219842648474...

Here's Spain building a field hospital to cope with the numbers: https://twitter.com/VOANews/status/1241882351115939847?s=20

Herd immunity hasn't worked. It's been a catastrophic failure that's flooded hospitals with very ill people.

> People keep banging on about who dies. That's not the point.

That's 100% the point. If you know who they are you can isolate them.

> Herd immunity hasn't worked. It's been a catastrophic failure that's flooded hospitals with very ill people.

I assume that you know many people with Polio then?

Well, the obvious answer is they die.

So even if young people do not die of Coronavirus (which we do not know for sure) they die because they cannot get medical treatment after cutting their finger on a rusty table edge, or get into a car accident and cannot get medical help, etc.

> > Herd immunity hasn't worked. It's been a catastrophic failure that's flooded hospitals with very ill people.

> I assume that you know many people with Polio then?

It's disingenuous at best to ignore that the parent comment referred specifically to seeking herd immunity (as opposed to early lockdown) of COVID-19.

> That's 100% the point. If you know who they are you can isolate them.

What do you do with everyone else?

Well, everyone's isolated now, so you let the young ones out.

Please just go look at the fucking videos I've already posted, which show hospitals overwhelmed by people under 60 who need a variety of beds, including high dependency ITU beds with intubation, but also less intensive beds with ventilators and oxygen.

Videos are anecdotes not statistics. I'll wait for the papers.

Young folks can still get the disease and end up in the hospital ward or even the ICU. The only ones who might be safe from significant consequences are small kids, who by definition are sharing their household with someone who might be at risk.

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