My point is that you’re taking it too far with the above and drawing bad conclusions. There is no precedent for when every ambulance is dispatched at the same time. I would also question why every ambulance would be designated for transporting COVID-19 patients, considering the risk for contamination would be very high and the virus lives on metal/plastic surfaces for 2-3 days. I would like to know what exactly the Netherlands is doing in terms of its ambulance service.
Considering I clearly stated the opposite, you may want to re-read what I wrote in case you’re thinking I’m trying to attack you or something.
My original point was that hospital burden is only exacerbated for serious cases. I worked in a hospital for 4 years from 2007-2011 as a janitor. I saw them triage car accidents when ~8 were in critical condition. The hospital only had about 5 ICU beds free at any given time. How hospitals solve this, is that other rooms, surgery rooms, ER suites, etc., are quickly transformed into whatever requirement is needed. I get that this is hardly representative of the current situation, but hear me out. I’ve also dealt with hospitals and situations where a few hundred people would have to be admitted en mass for events like flooding/ice storms/fires, and the hospitals have always coped and did just fine. This was long after I stopped working as a janitor mind you. Those were not short-term issues either. The solution to not having enough “capacity” was hospitals would not keep people for observation if they were low risk for complications after minor surgeries/treatment, and would not allow for overnight stays if it was not a serious issue.
The problem now is that hospitals and medical care facilities are short on supplies and staff. The staff can’t work more than they were working before COVID-19 without succumbing to burnout. I have heard that retired medical staff are being recalled and are volunteering to help out, but this isn’t a long term solution due to the number of hours per week they still have to work. I don’t believe that we can keep up this rate without force generating from other areas such as the military, students, etc.
When it comes to allegations of people thinking they have COVID-19 and flooding the hospital en mass, I have read and heard that this is not true. People appear to be avoiding hospitals and are using self-diagnosis tools and the hotline to determine if they need to come in or not. There are also triaging tents set up outside hospitals now to assist in determining if you should go in to get tested or not.
Anyway, a new issue now is that the news will sensationalize anything regarding COVID-19, mostly because of how they generate revenue through click-baiting and sensationalism. They were doing this before, but now it just contributes to panic and fear.
In the UK certain of the self-employed who have a 2018/19 tax return and have a ‘profit’ of less than £50K per annum will be getting in June a taxable grant of 80% of their profit averaged over up to 3 years of tax return for 3 months (pro rata) back dated to March (or April?).
Of course many self-employed will fall through net, e.g. those who sunk much of their profits into the business, those who only set up in the last year, those who earned over £50K…
Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…
That is exactly what I was looking for - thanks!
The ensuing discussion is very important, but actually not the line of thinking I had when asking the question.
I was more trying to come to grips with the fact that the rate of people dying in that place has doubled, and yet there is little apparent realisation or “media coverage” of how dire that is.
I was trying to understand whether it is “3000 people died of CV, which is more than 9/11, this is a disaster” or “3000 people died of CV, but that’s barely a blip in the number of people dying anyhow, this is not a significant thing yet”
(I chose 3000 because that is more than 9/11, and what the number probably is by now).
It appears that it is the former - a massive humanitarian disaster in theUS - yet the sense the media gives me (here in Australia) is that the US is still in “nothing to worry about, it’s just the flu” mode.
Am I worried about CV - yes: this is very worrying.
(I also have this awful awful guilty feeling of how it might actually be good, if it finally wakes up the US people to how badly they are being governed. It seems so wrong to be glad about a disaster like this, and yet I can’t help this feeling…)
Edit, maybe the above article shows that the US is at last switching into disaster mode: first I’ve seen of this kind of thing.
" Trump asks medical supply firm 3M to stop selling N95 respirators to Canada"
… and yet …
Yeah, I really wish I knew what he was doing and why.
If there’s anyone who could help enlighten me, send a PM or post here if it’s not too much to write I guess.
Random good thing I saw from the US:
Real-time USA Data
This website also breaks down data for individual states and counties
New York City Data
https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data.page
Friday, April 3, 2020, 5:00 pm local time
2935 deaths in New York State
1867 deaths in New York City
[moderator note: personal attacks deleted]
About the virus in Wuhan: Dozens of my friends were in Wuhan when the virus broke out and there were no SO2 or truck carrying tons of cash or shooting or these kinds of amusing stuff. There’s a fact that China has the most ECMO and largest productivity of producing masks in the world. The situation didn’t become worst only because all the other 32 provinces are giving their hands to Hubei Province, dispatching medical corps and most of them are volunteered. What’s more, there are hundreds of cities like Wuhan supporting the epicenter of the virus. That’s the reason why the virus is under control.
Related to coronavirus.
I don’t think this is corona related, apparently it is a very very old tradition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qingming_Festival
but makes sense in corona context too
I had never thought of how many items are touched daily in a common household. 
Did you see this one:
I’m a simple man: I see Mark Rober, I like…
Hah! Clarified at last!!! 
For a long time my OGS profile just said
A simple bugcat.
(I’ll stop with the short replies ^^)
Hey, remember I was talking about how in Moscow they want to introduce permissions to go out and that was kinda annoying me? That was postponed.
But since I live on campus I’m subject to university rules. And it’s getting wilder.
First of all, we’re allowed to exit the building only for 1.5 hours, security guard writes down your name, purpose of leaving, time of departure and arrival.
And now one of the students was in close contact with confirmed case and the whole building (not mine, one next to mine) closed on 14 days quarantine. Which means no one is allowed to leave or enter. Moreover movement between floors of the building is forbidden too. This is pretty crazy.
Also today there was disinfection and people are strongly recommended to stay in rooms until whatever they’re spraying clears out.
Getting a bit uncomfortable. I’ll go buy some more food before they closed me down too.
Yandex created map of density of people on the streets
higher index = less people, 5.0 no one outside
from March 5 to April 3
In Astana and Armenia quarantine works for a while already
In Russia it was implemented only recently
in Belarus there is no quarantine, so (1.9) - there are a lot of people on the streets
something like this from Google