P wrote:
Silver Linings
Personal anecdote: My wife is a nurse who works in one of the larger hospitals in the SF Bay Area. She has been working half of her shifts in the COVID-19 unit but sees other units as well. With her latest daily report she says that the ED (Emergency Department) has been almost completely empty recently. The reason seems to be two-fold; 1) Nobody wants to go to the ED and risk exposure to COVID-19 and 2) Nobody is doing anything while this "shelter in place" order is in place. So, no car accidents, no bike accidents, no skateboard accidents, . . . nobody is getting hurt while we're all sitting around the house. :-( :-)
It is entirely possible that COVID-19 is actually saving lives.
Not only are there fewer car crashes, but one of the biggest worldwide killers is air pollution. The World Health Organization estimates that 4.6 million people die each year from causes directly attributable to air pollution. That's far more than in car crashes.
In China, air pollution was down 25% during the outbreak.