cone said:
why aren't they canceling elective procedures like they did in April?
Well, some hospitals are. But you're right, most aren't. The big reason is that we know a lot more about this virus now than we did in April, and elective procedure process has completely changed at most hospitals I'm familiar with.
There are significantly more pre-procedure checks, including mandatory COVID tests prior to procedures. Patients and all staff are masked, more disinfection procedures are in place, etc. It's a very different environment than April.
ORAggieFan said:
The problem is thinking government can control this. California was an early state for mask mandates, has had some of the most restrictive measures. LA has not been allowed to have indoor dining at all since this started. Some of the highest mask compliance. None of it works. Now they are taking actions they admit likely won't do anything like closing outdoor dining. This approach causes frustration and more people disobeying with the belief it is unfair. Main whole, FL eases restrictions and is doing much better than CA.
Have you compared population density of Florida vs California? Or total population? Would it be a lot worse if these mandates weren't in place? I don't think anyone thinks they can control this. I think government thinks it's their responsibility to control the damage, which I think they can accomplish. I'm in SoCal as well and in my observations compliance with mitigation measures is pretty low. Superficially it looks like there's compliance in low risk situations (grocery stores, public places), but it's the high risk situations (bars, indoor, outdoor dining in makeshift tents and structures, parties, etc) where no one cares.
For what it's worth, Florida has over 50k cases per million population and over 900 deaths per million. California has less than 40k cases per million population and over 500 deaths per million. Very similar number of total deaths despite having an 85% greater population. Is Florida really doing that much better?
What if a place like LA with a very dense population took the same approach as Florida? I don't know. You don't know. Anything is conjecture. There's a reason why we have terms like "hindsight is 20/20" and "monday morning quarterbacking." We won't know the best approach months, or even years from now.
There is no prefect solution here. But a completely hands off solution and just letting things fall as they may is not the way I'd approach this. And Sweden is not America.