I just want to make a comment here for no particular reason.
I live in Melbourne, Australia. We are in the middle of an outbreak of Covid 19, and it isn't even something that registers on the global stage.
The initial outbreak early this year was easily controlled through social distancing, isolation and relatively good management.
Everyone thought we did well, and we did. CV19 looked to be something that, for most people, was not a big deal. But for some it meant hospital and ICU and then death.
My take on it is that CV19 is relatively bad in itself, and bad enough to warrant the shut down given we don't know enough to simply ignore it. Most people will be okay. Most people who die from it have pre existing conditions and are old.... but only if the hospital systems are functioning. If that fails, then the game changes somewhat to kill healthier and younger people.
In this second outbreak, one that is not driven from overseas arrivals but community spread that is untraceable, and it isn't even that bad in global sense, my take is this.
In a few weeks we went from 10s per day to 600 plus per day. Our hospitals are full even at those "low" numbers. Most people in hospital with CV19 are very sick, and the ICU wards are almost full. Nurses and doctors are coming down with CV19 in spite of having protective equipment and training and the human resources we have are stretched already. It has made it into aged care facilities now (25% of them are infected now) and that situation is about to become a nightmare very soon.
This has happened in a city with very good health care, good resourcing, well trained staff, a proactive State Govt and supportive Federal Govt. All it has taken to bring our health care system to breaking point is an average 400 cases per day over the last week, but 1300 in the last two days.
Testing has been huge, something like 1.3 million tests for a population of 5 million people.
CV19 is a problem. Sure, it doesn't severely affect most people, but when it does, it does it hard and over a long period of time... and we are only now learning more about the longer term effects it has.
Melbourne is in week 3 of a fairly tight lockdown with mask wearing compulsory and it is looking like we are losing the fight a bit.
The economy is hurting, people are stressed, it is not nice at all.
While I would like to think that we can just open everything up and let this thing rip through, it isn't the right decision. So many people would die doing that and it wouldnt just be CV19 cases.
Because the hospitals are stressed, elective surgery has been cancelled, administrating meds to very ill people is difficult and they are catching CV19 while in hospital and dying from it.
I am unsure as to why people think CV19 isn't a big deal, or play it down or undermine the severity. Just look at Melbourne, well tested, resourced etc, we know fairly well how many cases we have and the numbers are not all that big, yet we are in trouble in the health services already. If we keep up this 600 plus day stuff for a few more days things are going to start breaking down and the death toll will begin to include people of all ages, not just the over 50s. Younger very sick CV cases do well because of the hospitals, not because the disease isn't all that bad for younger people.
That is my take on this....
https://au.news.yahoo.com/coronavirus-emergency-doctors-plea-as-victoria-cases-soar-020007459.html