Stop Calling Us Frontline – We are your last resort
I want to preface this by saying in no way am I minimizing the stress, strain and pain that goes along with treating COVID patients. But I believe articles like this one do not serve a positive purpose beyond spreading FUD. Let me explain.<p>First, the author goes straight to the ventilator as a fear tactic. The fact remains, most infected do NOT get hospitalized, most hospitalized patients do NOT require ICU level care,  many ICU patients do NOT require invasive ventilation. The author makes it seem like there are no steps between getting COVID-19 and being on an invasive ventilator. We now know[1] that this is not even suggested for most patients.<p>Secondly, they buried the lede a bit, &quot;ICU beds usually run at about 70-80% capacity.&quot;. This is a point that is rarely mentioned, so I am glad this author did. But when you hear pearl-clutching news stories about the local hospital being at 80% capacity, remember that is _normal_. And hospitals can manage surges. It is like when the media focuses on case count rather than death rates or % positive rates. It creates a false sense of fear and panic.<p>Finally, and this is my biggest problem about this article. We all know COVID-19 is dangerous, deadly etc. The market of emotional COVID hit pieces is saturated. It needs to be accepted that each person assess risk differently. And assessing the risk of COVID and deciding to still go to the gym doesn&#x27;t mean the person hates science or is a dumb person. It means that they are accepting the risk.<p>You could (convincingly) argue that in a society, we can&#x27;t assess risk at the personal level as our very existence risks others. This is a deeply philosophical question, and it lands somewhere between the runaway train thought experiment and the butterfly effect. Somewhere between a direct action resulting in death vs. a serious of consequences in which the end result is the death of someone but you were the prime mover. At which point does the &quot;blame&quot; reduce to 0? I am interested in this debate.<p>Anyway, stop with the emotional pleas. People know. They simply accept it.<p>[1]
<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.statnews.com&#x2F;2020&#x2F;04&#x2F;21&#x2F;coronavirus-analysis-recommends-less-reliance-on-ventilators&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.statnews.com&#x2F;2020&#x2F;04&#x2F;21&#x2F;coronavirus-analysis-rec...</a>