I think the Corona-panic is overblown and I'm unable to see it any other way.

You’re not a horrible person. You’re correct. And don’t worry about us working in IcUs, we are not overwhelmed. We are happy to still be working. Hospitals are full all the time, this is not new. We are fully staffed everywhere including nyC, because hospitals are always staffed when they are full.

Open some more hospitals then. Don't steer all cases to a few.

I was prepared for a backlash of angry folk, but I think you are the first person who works in ICU's who has not implied that the world is ending! I respect you for that. If I every find myself needing intensive care, I hope a level-headed person like you ends up treating me.

You are entirely correct. 95% of hospitals in the US are currently underutilized. Yes people are dying in NYC but 99% are old with underlying conditions mostly brought on by themselves. That doesn't matter to the militant, they want the healthy and prosperous to suffer alongside. They didn't care when those people were drinking or smoking or overeating or not exercising because death always seemed so far away. But now for the people who sacrificed all of these years by not drinking and smoking and overeating and being g lazy, sacrifice some more. So leave school and leave your job and stop exercising and watch the media tell you how bad it is.

My best friend runs a large hospital. He tells me that this whole thing is manufactured. They have no patients because everyone is cancelling their appointments. He has had to cut the hours of doctors and nurses. He has a stockpile of PPE. He has had only 3 patients with Covid 19. His ICU physicians would echo the sentiments of the other poster.

Horrible Person wrote:

I hear the argument that "It's only going to get worse! Many more will die!" While this may be true, even if it increased tenfold, or became twenty times larger, let's even say it kills 2 Million. I understand that this is bad. But 2 million on top of 60 million is a 3% increase the the deaths we get anually every year. Meanwhile, 150 Million are born per year and the population goes up by 90 million every year. This increase in deaths would set back the growth of the world population by roughly eight days.

Your estimates are totally off. The death rate is 1% *if* people get proper hospitalization. 10-20% get hospitalized. Say half those hospitalized will die without hospitalization. If everyone gets sick, most people won't have ventilators etc, so let's say 5% will die, to be conservative. Half the world's population needs to get sick before we have herd immunity.

That means 5-10% (half of 10-20%) of the world will need to be hospitalized -- most of them all at once in any given location. Think about how ridiculous that is.

It means at least 2-3% of the world will die. That's something like 200 million deaths. You're underestimating it by a factor of 100.

Horrible Person wrote:

I was prepared for a backlash of angry folk, but I think you are the first person who works in ICU's who has not implied that the world is ending! I respect you for that. If I every find myself needing intensive care, I hope a level-headed person like you ends up treating me.

People are bored of posts like this now.

Yeah, we get it, you don't think it's a big deal.

... but just be aware your estimations are guesses just like the OP.

Again, I don't have any answers and have no idea what the proper response was (or should have been) to this whole thing.... because there is no way to know the correct way to handle this.

One thing is still certain, those making the decisions on which way to go forward on this don't know either....

David S wrote:

That's something like 200 million deaths. You're underestimating it by a factor of 100.

200 Million will die when less than 90,000 have died in 3 months? Sure buddy, will we escort them to the hospital on our flying pigs?!

Horrible people like you don't understand that a lot of Covid-19 death are on top of normal death. And only because of social distancing the last couple of weeks it won't get as bad as virus experts predicted for the developed world.

I can only imagine it will be really bad for Africa and parts of Asia like India. There will be a lot of people dying there because of population density and being poor.

Have to agree with OP. If you die of cancer this year nobody gives a damn, but die of Covid and you're all over the news with 1000's of condolence messages to your family.

I don't agree with you, but I think that your thinking is rational. When this is over, and we get to look back at this, in moments that are hopefully less emotionally charged, people who stand on both sides of the response can get together and look objectively at what went well and what didn't, so that our response to future disasters, be them pandemics, or something else, can be better. I'm that the one thing that people on either side of the argument can agree on is that our response has been far from perfect.

To me, the biggest difference in coronavirus compared to the other things that you reference (cancer, cardiac conditions, and total death) is that we are already putting measures into place to minimize those things and that is still the resulting death. We treat people for cancer and cardiac conditions, which is why the death rate is as low as it is. Same goes for Covid-19 right now. We are doing the best we can to minimize the death.

Right now we are doing that without regard for costs. We are doing whatever it takes. And that cost is high, which is where the disagreement comes from as some believe that the costs are worth it and some do not. On an individual level it makes sense that we have disagreement, because the cost is not equally dispersed among citizens. Some people are losing a lot more than others. On top of that, we don't all share the same value system and some have been touched by the disease in very different ways. This is not all just political. If you picked two people with very similar political beliefs, but one person lives in Manhattan and the other lives in South Dakota, those two people would likely have a very different view on the response to Covid-19. Maybe not, but personal experience plays as big a role as politics.

I think you've done a good job to outline what you believe the costs and benefits will be. I would say that I think if our healthcare system were to become overwhelmed, it would also lead to higher than normal cancer deaths and deaths from other medical conditions for the same reasons that it will lead to higher instance of Covid-19 deaths, so that could factor in, but I don't know that it would add a number of deaths that would change the way you see things.

At first, I was very against the shut-down. At this point, I feel like we're too far into it to abandon it. If we've given up a month, just to return to normal, and then have the same thing happen in 2 months as would have happened if we did nothing, then it would truly be a waste. So I am in favor of seeing it through and hoping for a gradual return to normalcy.

The idea that "the entire world" gets this virus is laughably stupid. As is the idea that it would happen in short order. Just pure fear-mongering nonsense. Multiplying the (far too high) "official" death rate by the world's population is not how things work..... like, at all.

another fact wrote:

You’re not a horrible person. You’re correct. And don’t worry about us working in IcUs, we are not overwhelmed. We are happy to still be working. Hospitals are full all the time, this is not new. We are fully staffed everywhere including nyC, because hospitals are always staffed when they are full.

+1

OP you are not a horrible person you wrote some thoughtful things and wished all the best to everyone in this challenging time

You make very good points. And I feel that I must clarify something:

I don't think the social distancing and cancellations of sport events are unjustified. I can see the point in them.

What I don't agree with is the hysteria. I've seen a man recieve threats and insults for going for a bike ride. I've seen people selfishly hogging all the pasta and bread in shops. I've seen ENTIRE GOVERNMENTS allow paranoia to cloud their judgment and ban exercising, which imo is an unjustifiable, entirely stupid decision! Even my own mother claims she's 'risking her life' by delivering post!

All we need to do is stick to social distancing for a month or two, then open back up like the Chinese have done. It is not the end of the world.

I completely agree that we'll be analysing how we handled it in the years to come, and people will overreact and say it was terrible. But I think what needed to be done has been done and any more is overdoing it. My personal opinion of Boris Johnson (I'm British) has definitely improved during this period.

not in NY wrote:

My best friend runs a large hospital. He tells me that this whole thing is manufactured. They have no patients because everyone is cancelling their appointments. He has had to cut the hours of doctors and nurses. He has a stockpile of PPE. He has had only 3 patients with Covid 19. His ICU physicians would echo the sentiments of the other poster.

Is this hospital in Idaho or somewhere else where no one lives? My godfather runs a hospital in Dallas and he can't sleep because they're so slammed.

The Starved Elephant wrote:

not in NY wrote:

My best friend runs a large hospital. He tells me that this whole thing is manufactured. They have no patients because everyone is cancelling their appointments. He has had to cut the hours of doctors and nurses. He has a stockpile of PPE. He has had only 3 patients with Covid 19. His ICU physicians would echo the sentiments of the other poster.

Is this hospital in Idaho or somewhere else where no one lives? My godfather runs a hospital in Dallas and he can't sleep because they're so slammed.

Like, I live in a town of 35,000 people outside Chicago and we've had 60 covid-19 cases so far. Where could you possibly be living that only has three?

One of my former students, a man in his 40s and a really good guy, died from COVID-19 yesterday.

Please don't try to tell me that this shi!t's not real.

Testing is no not done at the hospital. They have had only 3 hospitalized. Do you realize there are entire states where total cases are only in the hundreds of which most are not hospitalized? Current hospitalizations in the US are 6 per 100,000 people which means a city of 50,000 would have had on average only 3 hospitalizations. Since your city is higher, there are some cities which have had no hospitalizations.