> Would your idea have been to allow the extra hospital capacity to be filled up?
Not completely filled, but yes, this is exactly what I've been saying. If we had allowed the extra capacity to get used, instead of getting rid of it, the lockdowns wouldn't have had to be as strict. Less strict lockdowns means less economic problems, which means we could sustain them longer.
Which gets right back to my original point: As it is now, people have ended up with more pressing concerns than the virus and so care less and less about following the lockdowns.
Also another quick aside, back on that original point - "two weeks to slow the spread"? Lockdowns were sold to us specifically on slowing the spread while we increased capacity, to deal with the increase in patients. There was always an understanding that as long as we don't go past that capacity, no extra lives would be saved, they'd just be spread over a longer period. That's why the original slogan was "two weeks" - it was what we needed to build the extra capacity, then we could stop the lockdowns as long as we kept masks/social distancing.
I don't know what you were sold, of course. But surely you agree that deliberately making/letting people get sick is obviously evil.
What could possibly be a more pressing concern than people's health?
Indeed in many countries the original restrictions were lifted or ameliorated after the first wave. However -just looking at the numbers- obviously something went terribly wrong in the United States overall, and authorities were not able to keep their promise.
This sucks terribly. It doesn't magically make it safe to not have restrictions, of course.
> What could possibly be a more pressing concern than people's health?
"Health" is far more encompassing than "don't get the virus". I'm also talking mental health and security (food and shelter), both of which have been badly affected by the lockdowns and lost jobs from the lockdowns.
> obviously something went terribly wrong in the United States overall
There's (at least) two things going on here, neither of which has to do with the response:
* The US is big. Half the country has a different climate than the other half, and all evidence is that SARS-CoV-2 is heavily seasonal. What you're seeing in the country graph is as it recedes in one set of states, it grows in another set. Check out the curves for southern states like Florida, Mississipi, or Arizona - their first wave doesn't start until the summer, after first wave in the northern states like Illinois have already ended. Add them together and you get the consistently high rates for the whole country.
* Too-high-cycle PCR positives without symptoms being counted as a "case". The WHO just changed their recommendations last week because PCR testing has been being misused (as people have complained about since at least last summer) to take into account the false positives and symptoms; if these new recommendations are actually followed, expect the case rate to plummet pretty rapidly (though perhaps not sharply as different states may adopt it at different times).
Not completely filled, but yes, this is exactly what I've been saying. If we had allowed the extra capacity to get used, instead of getting rid of it, the lockdowns wouldn't have had to be as strict. Less strict lockdowns means less economic problems, which means we could sustain them longer.
Which gets right back to my original point: As it is now, people have ended up with more pressing concerns than the virus and so care less and less about following the lockdowns.
Also another quick aside, back on that original point - "two weeks to slow the spread"? Lockdowns were sold to us specifically on slowing the spread while we increased capacity, to deal with the increase in patients. There was always an understanding that as long as we don't go past that capacity, no extra lives would be saved, they'd just be spread over a longer period. That's why the original slogan was "two weeks" - it was what we needed to build the extra capacity, then we could stop the lockdowns as long as we kept masks/social distancing.