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Comment by flohofwoe | Hacker News Reader

Taking pressue off the healthcare system was the main goal of all restrictions, this was communicated right from the start at least in Germany. Because what happens when the healthcare system breaks down could be seen in various countries early in the pandemic.

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And this is irrational on a country wide scale, though understandable at the beginning. We should, I would think, be much better at modeling by this point factoring in vaccinations and recovery immunity to make predictions about specific municipal healthcare risks and move resources to meet them accordingly. Knee-jerk national restrictions based on accelerating cases seems foolish at this point without stringent data models that predict unacceptable levels of healthcare strain. Maybe such models are put forward in some places, but I haven’t seen it.

On the last point, have there been any developments in early treatment protocols in Germany?

Early as in "apparently that person has an infection building up, there's a small risk of it getting very bad, do we get out the rare, expensive early treatment pills full of side effects for this one?"

I've heard one tiny statement about that question, it sounded like strong focus on practicality. Like cases already in treatment/observation for unrelated reasons (but likely increased risks). Certainly no "oh, your test pinged positive? Here, have these for five days" anytime soon.

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