Data is showing that the infection fatality rate is around 0.5%-1%, and is concentrated in older people. [1] is one study, but there are many others. Given this data, it's clear that our current response is out of proportion with reality.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/COVID19/comments/g4tqvk/dutch_antib...
> Data is showing that the infection fatality rate is around 0.5%-1%, and is concentrated in older people.
right, "old" (65+?) people are going to die anyway, lets just let them die sooner. How much sooner? Years? Decades? Does this really sound like a cogent counterargument to not letting people die?
Let's ignore the morality aspect of this, which I don't think is in your favor, to put it mildly. I don't really like people suggesting that millions of people should die because "this is sad, but at some point, everyone has to die." Yikes.
But lets pretend we live in a very nauseating reality where older people don't really matter very much. You should still want society shut down to prevent this spreading out of hand because this will easily and thoroughly overwhelm all of our healthcare resources, which will mean hundreds of thousands of people you actually do care about (i.e. non-older people) will also die from lack of medical care either from COVID, pre-existing medical conditions, new medical conditions, etc.
First, the .75% mortality rate is a one-time hit. It likely pulls some deaths forward, so the incremental death rate is maybe .5% in a single year. Again, this is terrible, and sad, but we should be mindful and accurate with numbers.
Second, people make lots of choices that increase their mortality risk by .5%. For example, lots of people eat at McDonald's on a regular basis, which certainly increases your lifetime mortality risk by .5%. And other people don't exercise at all. 30 minutes of jogging a day will lower your mortality by at least 1%, likely a lot more [1]. But we don't pass laws to force everyone to jog for 30 minutes a day.
With the new data, which is showing that mortality rates from covid-19 are not like smallpox 2.0, we should adjust our response to be more in line with responses to comparable risks.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/nov/04/any-amo...
This isn't really true. It depends a lot on the state. The healthcare system in my area, California Bay Area, is completely underwhelmed. Here are some numbers from San Mateo:
(1) 40% of standard ICU beds are open
(2) 91% of ventilators are unused
(3) 91% of "surge beds" are unused
Source: https://www.smchealth.org/post/san-mateo-county-covid-19-dat...
If our goal is to flatten the curve to slightly below hospital capacity, current policy has flattened the curve way too much.
Current number suggest that only 1-3% of the Bay Area has been infected with covid-19. If you wan to get to 70% infection rate for herd immunity, it would take multiple years to get there at current rates.
Those numbers reflect a correct, working response. Sure the restrictions can be lifted, but carefully and balanced by changes in those stats.
Our goal is to simply avoid hospitals becoming inundated. How would it be possible to flatten the curve to "slightly below hospital capacity"? To do that we would need to know exact numbers on hospitalization rates from infections, have a testing capability that is far beyond what we currently can do, and then we would need to have fine-tuned control on peoples' behaviors and also never be wrong. We have too much ignorance about too many things to do this in a way that you would deem optimal. This is a disease that takes a median of 5 days to incubate, so as soon as we get something wrong (hint: we will get it wrong), it festers for 5 entire days before we know it, and then we're stuck with the consequences. The only rational choice is to take severe action and hope it's enough. It wasn't enough in Italy, it wasn't enough in NYC.
If you're saying that social distancing/lockdown policies are an "overreaction" because we still have ICU beds and ventilators, I think that's a pretty good sign. The entire point is to do something drastic now, and gradually ease distancing measures as it becomes safe to do so without causing additional large-scale outbreaks. As soon as we have the ability to contact-trace all new infections and can successfully contain outbreaks, we can start letting up.
Of course, as others point out, there's also the enormous strain on the hospital system. Which, I am very curious: are you not aware of what has been going on with the NYC hospitals? Or parts of Italy?
What we need to hope for is an unlikely vaccine, or a therapeutic treatment to mitigate the worst of the diseases effects.