When COVID-19 surfaced in China, they did an effective job of flattening the curve. Sure its methods may have seemed authoritarian, but then other countries found different ways to keep the pandemic under control. Flattening the curve limited the death rate, and kept hospital beds available while doctors discovered new treatments. The Atlantic news channel’s Sarah Zhang suggests it’s time to flatten the COVID-19 curve again.
We Should Flatten the COVID Curve to Buy Time Again
Sarah Zhang believes ‘dramatically lower death rates’ and available hospital beds are down to flattening the curve the first time. We can’t explain this away by saying average infections are younger and healthier. We are reaping the benefits of hard work, and sacrifices by our medical professionals as they took advantage of the flattened curve.
She says the simple rule that could keep COVID down is preventing infections while treatments and vaccines get smarter. The current surge appears to be worse than ever before. Her simple logic we find hard to disprove, is it’s time to flatten the COVID-19 curve again. And hang on in there for a while longer.
Dramatic Confirmation of Plummeting US Death Rates
The Atlantic’s Sarah Zhang cites a report in Journal of Hospital Medicine published October 23, 2020. There’s a link to the document below. However the main takeaway is the study of COVID-19 deaths in the New York health system. There, researchers found the mortality rate fell from 25.6 percent in March, 2020 to 7.6 percent in August, 2020.
We can’t explain this difference away by younger healthier patients, because the researchers adjusted for this factor. The simple truth appears to be people made sacrifices in their lifestyle, and this created space for doctors to do their work.
However, the numbers are now rising sharply again, and we don’t have game-changing therapies yet. Therefore, the future is still in our hands, just as it was before. Are we still up to the challenge, could we flatten the curve again?
Related
COVID-19 Cases Surge as Economies Reopen
How a COVID-19 Epidemic Peak Works
Preview Image: Flattening the COVID Curve
