Originally Posted by
Blackout
I'm not quite sure what you are trying to show there. Looking at those statistics, with the fairly harsh restrictions and lockdowns that are presently in place, doing substantial economic damage, there is minimal covid transmission in most states, and likewise minimal or zero hospitalisations in those states. Suggesting that purely from a health perspective solely in terms of preventing covid (setting aside the mental health issues and economic costs, which do need to be taken into account in the broader scheme of things) the restrictions and lockdowns are effective. In the states with more covid cases - but still a relatively small proportion of the population - there are more people hospitalised. That's not exactly groundbreaking news.
What do you think of places like Florida, where there are far fewer restrictions and there is much more widespread transmission, measured in the thousands to tens of thousands of cases per day, and at the most recent figures I've seen, approximately 16,000 people hospitalised out of a population roughly 2/3rds that of Australia? Their ICU's are at approx 90% capacity, with roughly 50% of those beds taken up by covid patients, and the capacity is limited by the number of healthcare workers available, not by the number of physical beds or ventilators or equipment present, so it's not a quick process to easily ramp up to deal with large numbers of new patients over any length of time.