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Originally Posted by redpoint5
... and really the main criteria is if medical resources are overburdened or not. Increasing cases isn't an indication of a failed plan to increase social mobility as long as medical resources are adequate.
People like to talk in pointless terms, such as which direction new cases are moving, or number of deaths. Important metrics are things like utilization of health resources, and life expectancy. If life expectancy drops significantly due to this disease, we'll know it was a significant problem. If life expectancy doesn't drop much, it may indicate we overestimated the problem (which is required initially when something is novel). We won't know what happened to life expectancy until this pandemic is history, but we will have it as a metric to evaluate our response in hindsight.
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In a pandemic medical resources can be overwhelmed in a week. The rate of infections and whether they are going up or down is critically important. Especially in a place like Alabama where 12% of the adult population is uninsured and 46% of the adult population is classified as high risk.*
*"High-risk adults" defined as adults ages 60 years or older, and adults between the ages of 18 and 59 with heart disease, cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or diabetes.