If you're going to pick one metric, if the exponential growth of the disease has any chance of overwhelming hospitals, then regional Rt > 1 should be the only metric for any mitigation measure.
If you're okay with Rt > 1 until hospitals are close to overwhelmed, then it means you were okay with allowing a doubling rate for a dangerous disease. It makes no sense. If you're destined to put mitigation measures in place eventually, why not just do them sooner and save a lot of suffering?
> If you're okay with Rt > 1 until hospitals are close to overwhelmed, then it means you were okay with allowing a doubling rate for a dangerous disease.... If you're destined to put mitigation measures in place eventually, why not just do them sooner and save a lot of suffering?
correct, it makes sense because now people have a choice about whether the prevalence of the disease will land them in the hospital. the mere prevalence is not the issue.
the subset of people that don't have a choice had the same issue before COVID existed, aka: the same distribution of immunocompromised people always existed.
this makes the calculus simply that it is back to business as usual, until ICU capacity is nearing full, that is. Since ICU capacity isn't only due to COVID cases, but due to all emergencies and injuries, then society as a whole needs to slow down to reduce the likelihood of emergency incidents, while also expanding ICU capacity to avoid future disruptions. The core of my supposition is that developed nations are not developed if emergency services are unavailable, and that governing system can prioritize reacting to that.
So no, you don't want business as usual until ICU capacity is near full. If you do that, you're basically destined to overwhelm ICU capacity.
If you increase ICU capacity, that solves nothing, because you're still satisfied with business as usual until ICU capacity is near full. No matter how big you make ICU capacity, Rt>1 means you will hit that capacity eventually. That's what exponential growth means.
The only answer is to move Rt<1, and you might as well do that sooner rather than later.
> No matter how big you make ICU capacity, Rt>1 means you will hit that capacity eventually.
I mean... for a little while until enough of the patients die. I mean that's whats happening.
ICU capacity due to COVID is filled overwhelmingly by unvaccinated people who had a choice in the matter for 9 months straight. If there wasn't a choice I would agree with you.
What is occurring now is completely tolerable to continue to allow to occur and is the consensus in all states, across the entire political spectrum.
Rt>1 means that there is a doubling rate of some number of days. Vaccines aren't 100% effective. The more cases, the more breakthrough cases. There are also children under 12. You can't say that all infected people had a choice in the matter, it simply isn't true.
If you're okay with Rt > 1 until hospitals are close to overwhelmed, then it means you were okay with allowing a doubling rate for a dangerous disease. It makes no sense. If you're destined to put mitigation measures in place eventually, why not just do them sooner and save a lot of suffering?