03-24-2020, 11:20 AM
I believe the Navy's mercy ships (hospital ships) are being stationed and prepped to handle non-covid cases. I would hope the national guard and any other military medical units would/could do the same in that those units would be in their element and not exposed to covid.
We can't let the virus burn through the population. We don't even know who's vulnerable and who isn't -- it's the younger people who we'll miss, thinking they're less vulnerable. Also, when the healthcare system gets overwhelmed, we'll start losing doctors, nurses, RTs, and techs, which will destabilize our ability to respond as well as gut the healthcare provider population in America where we were already facing a nursing shortage (and we don't graduate enough doctors as it is).
No economist I know is advocating anything less than "get this under control immediately," whether by quarantine, shelter-in-place, etc. (The longer we drag this out, the worse the damage!) No economist is advocating for half-hearted measures. We can point at the economic consequences all we want, but that does not change our best and only option.
We can't let the virus burn through the population. We don't even know who's vulnerable and who isn't -- it's the younger people who we'll miss, thinking they're less vulnerable. Also, when the healthcare system gets overwhelmed, we'll start losing doctors, nurses, RTs, and techs, which will destabilize our ability to respond as well as gut the healthcare provider population in America where we were already facing a nursing shortage (and we don't graduate enough doctors as it is).
No economist I know is advocating anything less than "get this under control immediately," whether by quarantine, shelter-in-place, etc. (The longer we drag this out, the worse the damage!) No economist is advocating for half-hearted measures. We can point at the economic consequences all we want, but that does not change our best and only option.