If the models and numbers were way off, why the lockdown?

FPI / April 17, 2020

Did we ever actually need to "flatten the curve" on the coronavirus?

That was the "purported rationale for the shutdowns that have crushed our economy and devastated the lives of tens of millions of Americans," John Hinderaker wrote for the Powerline Blog on April 14.

"The theory behind curve-flattening is not that the virus will mysteriously disappear while we are all hunkered down, and we will emerge when it is safe to come out. That won’t happen," Hinderaker wrote.

"The point of curve-flattening is to prolong the epidemic, making it last longer than it otherwise would. That way, more or less the same number will get sick and the same percentage will die, with one exception: our hospitals will not be overwhelmed by a crush of COVID-19 cases, and so ICU rooms and so on will be available for those who need them. That was the point of the shutdowns – to flatten the curve by stretching out the epidemic."

Hinderaker continued: "We know now, however, that the COVID-19 virus was grossly overestimated, at least with respect to the demand its victims would place on hospitals. Weirdly, it is not easy to find a definitive figure for the number of hospitalizations to date. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) estimates, if you do the arithmetic, that as of April 4 around 41,250 people were hospitalized due to COVID-19, which seems too low. The COVID Tracking Project pegs it at 62,673 as of April 13. Does that sound like a lot of hospitalizations? As usual, the numbers need a context."

According to the CDC, 490,561 people in the U.S. were hospitalized due to the seasonal flu virus in 2019. In 2018, it was 810,000 flu hospitalizations.

"This explains why America’s hospitals have not been overwhelmed by the number of Wuhan flu sufferers, not even in New York City," Hinderaker wrote. "The number of COVID-19 hospitalizations falls well within the natural variability in flu hospitalizations that we always see from year to year."

Hinderaker concluded: "Once again, government officials are making decisions with catastrophic effects on many millions of lives, on the basis of models that have proved to be wrong. The shutdowns should end tomorrow."

Free Press International