I usually stay out of the political/topical threads on HN but this is personal to me. From my point of view few if any of us commenting here are knowledgeable enough to connect all the disparate data points we keep snatching at and synthesize them into conclusions that are likely to be correct. The people who can do that are working on it, and generally too busy at the moment to post on forums or give interviews. The misinformation and unfounded conclusions that are flying around, and especially the atmosphere of political strife and mistrust are very frustrating to them (and all of us I'm sure). Most of us here have chafed at similar situations when people who don't really understand what we do express strong opinions about how we should do it. They understand how people are being impacted, but they can't give us certainty at the moment however badly we want it.
The mortality rate in this place or that; the experience on a cruise ship, or in Sweden, or in North Dakota vs. that in New York or Italy; the percentage of people who are positive and asymptomatic vs. presymptomatic vs. symptomatic; whether this or that drug seems to have a good effect on outcomes; they absolutely don't know how all of this fits together yet. All of them, doctors, nurses, researchers, are going in every day, treating patients, participating in daily conference calls to share information on outcomes, trying different therapies. They're figuring this out and all they have asked us for is some time. All these studies and hypotheses and numbers from various places don't always reflect what's actually happening on the ground.
Someone mentioned quarantining the "vulnerable" people and letting everyone else get back to work and develop our "herd immunity." Are researchers certain we gain long term immunity? Can they precisely define "vulnerable?" My wife is clinical care coordinator on a covid unit in northern New Jersey (that's the personal part). Her first patient was 51. I bet that's younger than most of you are thinking when you think "vulnerable." It looks like he's going to make it and drop into that large "didn't die" bucket I see referred to here over and over, but to get there he spent _five weeks_ in an ICU bed on a ventilator. My wife has treated lots of elderly people. She's also treated people in their 30's and 40's. People in those age groups have died. Children have died, too. How many of each type of person will be affected by this or that containment policy? We don't know.
When this thing started my wife's hospital was running about 2:1 patients to nurses. They're now flirting with 4-6:1. They don't have proper PPE. At another hospital near us a nurse was suspended for bringing her own to work. The general opinion is that the system can't handle much additional strain, and I don't think any of us are in a position to argue the point with them. It's been a month. We can absolutely make it through a few months if we have to, while they do their work. I personally think that would be easier with strong and consistent federal leadership, but that's a separate discussion. At the very least we should be willing to heed the people we expect to save our lives if we get sick.