Current Events > Someone smart clear up the "flattening the curve" to me

(+) Yeah! (+)

Ok I keep seeing people saying the reason we isolated to "flatten the curve" was not to minimize overall infections, but to slow the spread of infections so that the hospitals etc are not overloaded all at once.

So, with that being said, if you slow it down doesn't it kinda lower the count of infections by itself?

So are we all gonna get it regardless we are just trying to slow down the rate in which we get it? If that is the case I'll go ahead and start licking doorknobs while it isn't crazy here.

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we're trying to slow down the rate and prevent the total number from rising. they aren't mutally exclusive. flattening the curve has to do with slowing the rate of infection

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it does not reduce the overall cases, no

we're "all" going to get it in the sense that we all get the flu. You'll probably get influenza eventually, but only 1/10 or fewer people get it every year in the US

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You don't want to get infected when hospitals are too filled to treat you.

And the problem is that it's hard to make it go away until most people develop an immunity to it. Otherwise, we'll just get another flare-up everytime someone gets it.

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Have u ever seen a gurl and been like 'eh girl is a bit curvy' so scientists are recommending those curves be flattened 4 health reasons

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P4wn4g3 posted...

Have u ever seen a gurl and been like 'eh girl is a bit curvy' so scientists are recommending those curves be flattened 4 health reasons

It all makes sense now
.

Yes it's to spread out infections, but people forgot that spreading them out lessens the chance of infections as well. It's literally how you beat viruses without a vaccine. You take the infected and you isolate them from the rest of the world until they are better. Flattening the curve is essentially doing that, but with everyone regardless of infection. The right has started spouting that flattening the curve means everyone still gets it and we only did it just to protect the health care system. While we did do it to protect the health care workers, that first part is completely false. How do you think other countries are opening up with lower cases every day? it's not because everyone got infected, it's because they have slowed it down so much that risk of infection is now a lot lower. It helps the system and it helps prevent people from catching it.

Edit: Just to be clear, Coloradoh isalso right. This is now probably going to be endemic, mypoint s more about the immediate future. Everyone will most likely get it at some point just like the flu, but flattening the curve doesn't mean everyone will eventually get it now.

P4wn4g3 posted...

Have u ever seen a gurl and been like 'eh girl is a bit curvy' so scientists are recommending those curves be flattened 4 health reasons

Finally someone clears this up for me. Thanks

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The idea is that id we just let the thing run rampant, we'll have new cases faster than we can handle them.

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There's also a possibility that we develop a vaccine or better treatments in the future. Ideally you may want to delay getting it for as long as possible.

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Flatten the curve just confuses people, it should have been #buy time.

Businesses ordering supplies and figuring out how to space workers apart.
Scientists learning more about the virus and testing out as many drugs as possible.
Hospitals getting a stockpile of every resource needed for possible surges.
States hiring an army of contact tracers.
Federal govt ensuring that compromised people or anyone with the virus can stay home and still get paid.

Like 90% of this is just starting, or being fought over. We bought some time but it was largely wasted.

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