Posted on by Californiacontrarian

Flattening the Curve

How many of you understand what “flattening the curve” actually means? We have been told for months that “we must flatten the curve,” and Newsom, the governor of California is still insisting on a very very slow and delayed opening of the California economy – keeping basic stuff, like schools, restaurants, bars, barber shops, beaches, etc closed, so that we can continue to “flatten the curve.”

Now even though I live in California, as I have said before, California voters are basically dumb. It is a safe bet that when asked, most in this state would not know what “flatten the curve” means.

I am going to assume that most, like myself, had thought that “flatten the curve” meant that we were enduring all of these lockdowns, etc. to lessen the number of cases of the coronavirus . . . but that answer is only partially true. This “flattening the curve,” basically means lessening the number of cases over the short term, but not over the long term; the number of new cases are being delayed, but not avoided completely. Those whose lives have been saved over the short term by “flattening the curve” will not be saved over the long term . . . unless a vaccine becomes available, and becomes available soon.

Is the wrecking of the lives of innumerable people by the destroying of the economy worth it? Remember, we are not talking about permanently protecting, but rather delaying.

As Jan Albert, a professor of microbiology in Sweden said, “strict lockdowns only serve to flatten the curve ,and flattening the curve doesn’t mean that cases disappear – they are just moved in time.”

Initially “flattening of the curve” was supposed to delay cases of Covid-19 so that our hospitals would not be overwhelmed with I.C.U. cases as what happened in New York. Remarkably, in Sweden, despite no lockdowns and few social isolation controls, the Swedish hospital system never experienced anything like what happened in Italy and Spain.

There are a gazillion models out there, and caution dictates that we should recall that is was a mistaken broken model that caused all of the panic in the first place. Nonetheless, for what it’s worth, a Harvard model projects that a 60% suppression of the disease because of lockdowns, will result in a higher peak later on and a higher number of total deaths compared to a strategy similar to what Sweden has been using. 

This is basically the same thing that I said earlier, namely that “ flattening the curve” could be worse over the long run. Perhaps the message should be: “strive to achieve herd immunity while the vulnerable are protected”

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