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Comment by y4mi | Hacker News Reader

Most of the nations where these kinds of restrictions are in place aren't in danger of getting their hospitals swamped to that degree.

It might be correlated (they might not be in danger of this because they have said restrictions), but that makes it very hard to convince people.

I personally do think that restrictions at this point are kinda pointless (at least in Europe). We've had enough time to get vaccinated and unless we're planning to live with these restrictions forever now, there is little point on keeping them active.

Postponing it more makes it worse on my opinion, because the vaccines lose potency with time.

But I'm just a random person from the internet.

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> Most of the nations where these kinds of restrictions are in place aren't in danger of getting their hospitals swamped to that degree.

Yes, but i'll tell you, the physicians are fed up (or at least the emergency physician i know is). Working in a hospital during the crisis was not pro-bono, but close. His 70-hour weeks for 6 week and his "vacations" (known as week-end for the rest of us) for the remaining of 2020 did burn him a bit. At least he got some "thank you".

Did you ever had a client (or a boss) that wanted you to implement something that you knew would create issues, and ignored your advices. You helped him anyway, mitigated the loss because you worked harder than your were paid to, even taking time of your week-end to help. He said thank you, but did not offer a significant pay raise. Then, 4 month later, the EXACT same thing happen. Do you focus on other client? Do you quit to find a new job?

I wouldn't be mad if my cousin refused to take care of Covid patients, especially unvaccinated ones. I know he morally, physically, can't but tbh i would've quit last year if i where him. I guess that's why i'm not in the field.

The president of the AMA in Victoria (australia) 2 days ago came out saying that non vaccinated people should sign advanced care directives to opt out of resus care given their choices. It has been panned by the national AMA and the past president as well as a very strong majority of doctors here (we did, after all, take a vow and the idea that you withhold care from people is really quite unthinkable) but absolutely many in the medical profession are really tired of what’s going on when there is an easily available and unfortunately politicised option that will reduce your risk of needing hospital care by 70-90%

> Most of the nations where these kinds of restrictions are in place aren't in danger of getting their hospitals swamped to that degree.

Literally all developed nations had their hospitals swamped. In western europe this is no longer an issue since many have gotten vaccinated.

Literally all developed countries have had some of their hospitals swamped at some point during most flu seasons and yet we don't act like the world is ending every year.

Is that really true? In the U.S., I know Seattle was briefly swamped and NYC was briefly swamped. But you are talking about a few cities being swamped for a few weeks. Not the entire nation's hospitals being swamped for a few months.

I remember reading that Arizona hospitals were "overwhelmed" but the only actual data I saw on that was a peak of 90% ICU capacity. There was a story about the maricopa county morgue being too full, but that turned out to be mostly bureaucratic incompetence.

The problem might be inefficient load balancing on hospitals, so even if, say, 80% of ICU beds are taken, you will get some hospitals that run out of beds while others have lots of excess capacity and an inability to efficiently share the load.

It would be interesting to get systematic data on this, together with some ideas on how to improve load balancing.

I seem to remember various huge warehouses and hotels being requisitioned by local governments and medical authorities for a projected mass surge in corona patients, which never materialized. These emergency triage centres sat empty and unused. It was somewhat embarrassing.

Yes, some places had temporary surges for which they were unable to cope, early in the pandemic. Wuhan, parts of Italy, New York, a few others. But it never happened in a systematic way. If hospitals truly believed that overcrowding were a looming threat, they would not be laying off nurses as they are in many American localities.

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