General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: On a scale of 1 to 10, how concerned are you about coronavirus? [View all]meadowlander
(4,411 posts)we need 29 million people not to all need them at the same time. And that means taking measures to ensure the transmission of the virus is slowed down and spread out over a longer period of time.
That means quarantines and reducing unnecessary social contact. And those are inherently disruptive to supply chains and require individuals to plan ahead to try to ease their demands on the system at the crucial times.
The risk is with systemic cascading failure not the death rate specific to Covid-19. Tying up most of the health care system to deal with 29 million severely ill people means all of those health care workers are not dealing with all of the other day to day illnesses and emergencies that they would otherwise be dealing with. For example, if you happen to need a biopsy in the middle of the crisis, your cancer diagnosis may be delayed which may affect the outcome of your treatment.
We're not going to stop having fires and domestic violence and car crashes and mass shootings just because of corona virus. There's a much thinner line between a functioning and non-functioning society than a lot of people want to recognise. We don't have a 40% buffer reserve of health care professionals and emergency services workers and infrastructure and logistics workers to absorb a huge spike in demand from people who are ill while also having a large number of people out sick.
It's not alarmist or absurd to be thinking at this point about how you can sort out your own needs for a bit if you have to while society triages its resources to help the people who need it the most.