Not to be debbie downer about a vaccine, but several other strains of coronavirus are included in what we call the common cold.  No vaccine there.  It may very well become seasonal.

But, that doesn't mean that we should have done absolutely nothing.  I think people misunderstand flattening the curve.  The whole idea was that, because of our for-profit healthcare system, we had no excess capacity to handle a wave of hospital admissions.  The purpose of these measures was not to prevent infections or to somehow magically prevent at-risk people, especially the elderly, from dying from it.  That was going to happen.  The purpose of flattening the curve was to prevent a whole other set of deaths:  people who could very well have survived the coronavirus with treatment but who couldn't get that treatment due to an overwhelmed healthcare system.

Right now, estimates are that 50% of the coronavirus deaths currently projected are individuals who would have been dead of other causes by the end of the year anyway.  If the vaccine turns out to be a pipe dream, our goal has to be to get that to 100%, such that no one is dying of coronavirus per se, but due to old age and/or fragile health.

The need for hospital space is important, because it's not like all the other stuff that kills people has gone on break, except maybe car accidents and mass shootings. The secondary victims of this will be the folks that also require hospitalization and health care unrelated to Covid-19 that are unable to receive it. 

What I think is worse is that we are woefully undertesting for this disease. I saw a couple stats that indicate that around 300,000 New Yorkers have been tested for corona. New York has a population of around 8,000,000. This means that around .038% have been tested. That's the biggest occurrence in the U.S. Other states have fewer tests (and lower population, granted.) The percentage of those tested still seem to come out at most around .05%.

That's not a useful number. It's insignificant. If the testing is less than 1% of the population - less than one in a hundred - then it's giving a useful response. "Why" is not important - not enough test kits, not enough medical personnel, too many scared or unable to get the test, etc.

It means that we don't have a useful picture. It means that, for example, Montana might have a 40% infected population - but we can't tell.

This crisis is bad, and it's going to get worse. Here in the U.S., thanks to President Murder, we can't tell because we lack the tests.

Self-isolation is a very sound way to prevent spreading the infection. How long can we stay quarantined? Well, as long as we have resources** to continue to obtain necessities, we can do it. We won't like it, I'm certain - after three months of being house with each other, tempers are gonna run a little short.

But, while the statistics may be OVER estimating the number of cases*, I don't believe that's the case. I DO believe that we're underestimating. On the same token, after a certain point, we can only do so much, and we're doing it now. If 10%, 30%, or 50% of Americans have corona, our preventative efforts seem able to address whatever that percentage is.

My GREAT fear is that the corona infection rate is not going to follow a bell curve, but rather a yeast-knee curve. That is, rate of infections will increase... then level off for a while... but then, increase again.

And we don't know if we can get rid of the infections or just keep them at bay. We don't know how soon a vaccine will come; it relies on an enlightening discovery, and that can't be predicted. We don't know if survivors of corona are immune to it, or have the same chance of getting it again, or have an even higher chance to get it again.

It IS an international crisis. While I personally don't think it's an extinction level event... we just don't know enough yet.

* And if we are overestimating, the precautions we are taking are still safety based and are going to keep that curve flat.

Although our healthcare system is shitty in many, many ways, it's ridiculous to blame it for the lack of capacity to handle this pandemic. Hospitals in many different countries are getting overwhelmed. Even under socialized medicine, hospitals can't afford to have hundreds of spare rooms sitting around just in case. Countries all over the world are taking the same measures.

Source? Seems like a bullshit stat. Certainly I can see the there is a number of people in an age range projected to die this year and that the COVID-19 deaths would overlap with that, but that's a very different statement from "half of the coronavirus deaths would have been dead this year anyway". 

Let's be clear. The elderly are the most likely to not survive COVID-19. That doesn't mean it is a disease that affects only the elderly. More than half of those hospitalized for coronavirus infections are under 64, and a fifth are under 44. They are less likely to die, but this is still a burden on the hospital system. This attitude of "well, we'll just have to settle for old people dying" doesn't really work.

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By trying to hide from it, we are doing a favour to the people who have to treat the infected while also improving that mortality rate.

For every 5 people that are infected, maybe 1 will end up in hospital.

The 2% mortality rate (or 1.5% or whatever it is) comes via being able to get people intubated to give their body a fighting chance to recover from the virus. We don't hide from the virus, nearly everyone gets it, there aren't anywhere near enough ventilators and suddenly that 2% is more like 5% or 6%. And your healthcare workers start to have a valid question of why they should be risking their lives to treat people when there is no effort to prevent the spread.

We slow the spread, we buy ourselves time, which is precious. Time to find out more about the virus. Time to find out why some people go downhill fast, while others have mild symptoms. Time to work out better treatments, both prophylactic and therapeutic. Time to increase capacity in hospitals. Time to ramp up testing. Time to ramp up PPE production.

Once we are confident that we have capacity to handle the peak (or, gulp, peaks) of infection, it becomes a different story.

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You using the phrase 'can't afford' just proved my point.  If a hospital isn't run as a for-profit entity, there is no 'can't afford'.  Running things for profit has certain benefits.  One of them is that it promotes efficiency.  Which is usually a good thing.  Waste is bad.  But when a pandemic hits, you need excess bed capacity.  You need a lot more ventilators than normal.  You need stockpiles of protective gear.  None of which you will ever have in a for profit system because, as you said, they can't afford it.  They can't run at a loss for very long.

Having national healthcare doesn't guarantee you'll be more prepared for a pandemic.  Many countries with national healthcare weren't.  But having national healthcare allows you to prepare.  The government can run rural hospitals and urban health centers at a loss.  They can run them at a loss in perpetuity to be prepared for these kind of eventualities.  You simply can't do that if your healthcare is grounded in the free market.


 Source?