re: Los Angeles municipal health system no longer attempting to contain Coronavirus

In linked article they blame federal cuts. They even admit cuts started back in 2007-2009 recession and a few years following. How long does a state with the resources & $ of California even with over 40% of its land owned by federal govt (and maintained I guess) take to adapt to cuts that mostly happened almost a decade ago and even attempted to hold a joint hearing on in 2013.
I agree that with restrictions on gatherings, school closures, and so on and no specific treatment testing all just to confirm what doctors can basically diagnose by current spread and ruling out a few things with similar symptoms and treat just like those with confirmation tests doesn't make much sense as long as the patients not critical will follow isolation protocols without an official test. It shouldn't be considered abandoning hope to contain virus or hurting chances to isolate when govts are trying to do this for everyone infected or not. It just seems like planting seeds to blame their next issue with treating patients and then their next and so on.

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In 2013, the Assembly and Senate held a joint hearing called “Are We Prepared? Assessing the Status of California’s Emergency Response Capabilities.”

There, a top California Department of Public Health official told lawmakers that local health budgets had been slashed by 30% to 40% in the previous few years.

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State Sen. Richard Pan (D-Sacramento), a physician who now chairs the state Senate Health Committee, recalled at the same hearing how his home county had struggled to respond in 2009 to the H1N1 flu pandemic that killed an estimated 12,500 people in the United States, according to the CDC. He said Sacramento County public health officials told him at the time that many of the health workers who deployed to combat the flu crisis did so shortly after they were given pink slips notifying them that they would soon lose their jobs.

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https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-03-20/coronavirus-pandemic-budget-cuts-public-health

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The testing was more of a statistical need than anything.

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Not if you were trying to get life back to normal sometime soon. That ship has sailed though.

I’ll say again:

The whole “contain” thing in the thread title is the issue. People want to compare South Korea’s isolation time to see how long we might be “social distancing” but South Korea was testing tens of thousands a day and had an intense program to trace and isolate anybody who might have been in contact with a positive patient. Los Angeles just gave up any artificial hope of a similar effort.

I’m really hoping that it rips through Hollywood with a ferocity not seen since the Bubonic Plague

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The whole “contain” thing in the thread title is the issue. People want to compare South Korea’s isolation time to see how long we might be “social distancing” but South Korea was testing tens of thousands a day and had an intense program to trace and isolate anybody who might have been in contact with a positive patient. Los Angeles just gave up any artificial hope of a similar effort.

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People wonder why this is under control in South Korea and out of control in Italy.

This is example A.

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I mean if it’s not going to change treatment, makes sense to me

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They are using common sense. We do not have enough tests to test everyone. Maybe we will in the future but not now. They are focusing primarily on the groups at most risk which make sense. Go see your PCP if you aren't feeling good. In the event that they may suspect you could have it, it doesn't change how they treat you. Stay home until you are better. Issue is (outside of having enough tests) a lot of people do the opposite of this and in turn infect others in general when it comes to being ill.

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I’m really hoping that it rips through Hollywood with a ferocity not seen since the Bubonic Plague

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Only if you promise it'll make a u-turn across the country and tear through Appalachia next.

So L.A. goes back to normal and we get to see how that plays out in one of the largest cities.

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Imagine if we only did a flu swab on the elderly and those already hospitalized. The flu would look like the plague.

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I ran the numbers to further drive this point home.

CDC estimates 12,000 - 61,000 deaths per year and 140,000 - 800,000 hospitalizations per year due to the flu.

Since we know that the CDC likes pimping these numbers, we will take the minimum estimate for deaths and a middle of the road for hospitalizations.
12,000/400,000 = 3% CFR

Folks, if we tested the flu like we are testing CV19, the numbers would be practically the same.

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We are transitioning to a more Soviet style economy. More central control and vastly reduced small business ownership. We are trending third world across a range of metrics

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Pull your fricking tampon out, jesus.