Approximately 7,452 people die every day in the US. With the current covid daily death count at about 2 - 3 thousand, that is between 26 and 40 percent of the daily deaths, if they could all attributed to the virus. That seems fairly significant to me. https://www.indexmundi.com/blog/index.php/2018/03/05/how-many-people-die-a-day-in-the-us/
Where is the spike? It has only just started. For most of the year, with the exception of April and May, we've seen only hundreds of deaths per day in the US. Since the middle of Nov, we're seeing thousands. https://covid19.who.int/region/amro/country/us https://ourworldindata.org/covid-deaths
But we destroyed parts of the economy and lives with the first prolonged shut down... and it did not do anything positive save perhaps a couple of areas with crowded hospitals. This time may be different and we should have been protecting the high risk much more directly and efficiently.
ICU Availability is at 0% -- the lockdown is strongly needed. ICU availability in Southern California at 0%, and it’s going to get worse, officials warn https://www.sandiegouniontribune.co...alifornia-out-of-icu-beds-amid-covid-19-surge
As I said weeks ago... the fuck up was not locking down the high risk months ago. I told you you multiple times... that when you have hospital bed shortages... local measures to prevent hospital bed shortages are expected. Now... I can tell you from what I heard from a doctor... our ICUs are screwed because the borders are open... and we are getting a ton of Covid patients from Mexico. Which is why I have been harping on closing the last few months also.. At least ten times I said... look at the chart here... look at the border and see all the Covid. https://www.sandiegouniontribune.co...20-12-14/how-many-covid-19-cases-are-near-you
The herd immunity strategy of the Trump administration is an utter failure. As people die so does the economy die (that much x an economic multiplier). Everywhere it is clear that most people would rather risk having to rebuild the economy over a painful recessionary interval, than risk not ever being able to participate in any economy again. "Maybe the future will fail me, maybe it won't, but if I'm dead today I don't get the chance at life tomorrow."
Probably someone is going to queue up a "but their risk perception is wrong" bit. And that's fine but it does not matter, you are not going to excise human fear and... herd mentality.