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Comment by jeremyjh | Hacker News Reader

I think the more thought-provoking question is what exactly is the Black Swan event? If only 37% of their ICU beds are used for COVID patients then why are so many more people dying right now?

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Three years ago, 0% of ICU beds were used for COVID patients. Now it is 37%. If ICU admission correlates with risk of death, and those beds would have been empty otherwise, or used for lower risk patients, a 40% increase in deaths seems reasonable. Certainly not a rigorous analysis, but it passes the smell test.

It is the US so unlike most of the rest of the world even if there were a lot of surplus ICU beds most people can't afford the 100K USD with insurance or 1M USD with under-insurance or no insurance it would cost them out of pocket to receive treatment.

> most people can't afford the 100K USD with insurance or 1M USD with under-insurance or no insurance it would cost them out of pocket to receive treatment

Where are you getting these numbers? I know multiple people in the US who have needed a COVID ICU bed, and they certainly weren't paying $100k out of pocket to do so. In most areas of the US, $100k could buy you a small house.

Homicides are up, In Atlanta it's 65% from 2019, other cities are similar. I think car fatalities as well. Then the isolation, COVID fears and economic issues have made worse an already growing drug and suicide problem.

I've known of quite a few deaths of youngish people recently and only one was COVID related. Car crashes, ODs and other medical issues. Like I've known two girls both about 30 that died unexpectedly of non-covid medical issues last year.

There is one possibility which this community will flag & downvote anyone for suggesting, which is shameful; the idea should be entertained and then dismissed, if appropriate.

You may be interested to see Kaiser Permanente's recent study, suggesting that more than one in 2,000 young men are experiencing untimely heart disease with a known cause: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.12.21.21268209v...

1) 37% of ICU beds for Covid means about a 50% increase in ICU patients.

2) If you go into the ICU for Covid you're probably leaving via the morgue. The survival chance for a Covid patient in the ICU is a lot lower than the typical ICU patient.

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