1) Hospitalization rates have been shown to be about an order of magnitude lower than estimates.
2) The most effective treatment is no longer limited by availability of invasive ventilation but rather widely available non-invasive ventilation and frequent repositioning.
3) Hospitals across the country are mostly empty and furloughing workers because their “elective” (e.g. chemo and surgical) wards were all shut down and now everyone is afraid to go to the hospital even when they’re having a cardiac event or a stoke
4) A steady drumbeat of serological studies are showing IFR is lower than estimated, and asymptomatic or mild spread much more prevalent. NYC hospitalization rate is < 2% based on serology.
5) Now that the scale of the economic devastation is becoming clearer and the scale of non-COVID deaths caused by lockdown are coming into focus, a clearer headed calculation can be made about the true immediate trade-offs of a lockdown, to say nothing of long term effects.
I’m personally concerned that we’re going to blow our chance to gain significant widespread immunity during summer months where IFI prevalence is low and vitamin D levels are high. A surge next winter concurrent with a flu spike is the worst case scenario.
We’re also starting to see stress on the food supply chain, or if it wasn’t going to be an issue it probably is now with the latest media coverage enough to provoke some major hoarding of meats / protein in the coming weeks. It’s almost comedic when you can’t buy toilet paper, it’s a different kind of problem when major grocery staples go missing.
These are all important points which weigh on the side of lightening up on restrictions. It’s a spectrum, and right now we are pressing full tilt to lockdown when the actual purported and scientific purpose of lockdown is no longer being served.