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Comment by viknod | Hacker News Reader

We've had a year at this point to prepare. Was there any effort to ramp up additional temporary facilities? Is it ICU beds, equipment or healthcare workers where we are falling short? From what I've read, the need for ventilator seems to be non-issue due to early stage hospitalization protocol changes. Maybe it's not publicized, but it seems stay home was the only step A, with no step B. The time that bought us seems to have been wasted.

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It is nurses and doctors that are the limiting resource. That pipe cannot be increased easily.

I keep wondering where are the hospital ships? The military doctors and nurses?

Looks like it’s been in Portland since July: https://www.myshiptracking.com/vessels/usns-mercy-mmsi-36781...

Yet Oregon doesn’t seem to be in such dire straights as CA: https://www.oregonlive.com/news/2020/12/coronavirus-in-orego...

A lot of "civilian" doctors and nurses are the military doctors and nurses, in the reserves.

>We've had a year at this point to prepare. Was there any effort to ramp up additional temporary facilities? [...] Maybe it's not publicized, but it seems stay home was the only step A, with no step B. The time that bought us seems to have been wasted.

That was the plan? As in, do lockdown, prepare hospitals, then lift lockdown and let the disease sweep through the country until we reach herd immunity? That would have resulted in hundreds of thousands or even millions of deaths. I always thought the plan was: lock down, wait until vaccine, get everyone vaccinated, then lift lock down.

> I always thought the plan was: lock down, wait until vaccine, get everyone vaccinated, then lift lock down.

"Lockdown" were always sold as in "flattening the curve, not "wait for a vaccine".

And this is an entirely reasonable position to adopt when you do not yet know, as was the case in early 2020, how long a vaccine will take to develop, or if one can be developed at all.

The plan was always iterative lockdowns, followed by loosening of restrictions, as the virus is much more deadly when hospitals are overwhelmed. The earliest studies and models clearly recommend this as widespread natural immunity is a guaranteed way though and a successful vaccine is not.

Human nature and politics have played their role, from both directions, for better or worse. So we’re all just betting on a vaccine, now.

Perhaps the issue is that there is simply no money left.

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