This is cherry picking hopeful data. Tests have false positives, the serological tests detect all coronaviruses including common human CoV which cause common cold.
The state of hospitals in Italy tell a different story. It might not be numbers, but it is more reliable indication of what letting this go rampant means.
Lombardy (the region of Northern Italy where this was concentrated) has a very very good health system.
And it still collapsed.
Don't get me wrong, lockdowns are super problematic and the economic hit is going to be really, really bad but it's better than letting health systems collapse.
For instance, Ireland (where I live) had 220 ICU beds before this started; we upped that to around 500 and around 350 were filled at the highest point.
And this was with a lockdown (started March 12th, massively tightened March 26th).
Our health service would have collapsed without the measures that have been taken, so I totally see why lockdowns have been introduced almost everywhere.
The best case scenario for this kind of event is that you react too quickly, everything's OK and then people complain that all the measures you took weren't necessary.
> Lombardy (the region of Northern Italy where this was concentrated) has a very very good health system.
To be honest, it was good, but it was not as good as people hoped. Massive errors like allowing infections to run rampant in the hospital in Alzano Lombardo contributed a lot to the spread of the disease in the area around Bergamo and Brescia.
ICUs were also at 80% utilization when the pandemic hit, because beds have been slashed a lot in the past years.
The state of hospitals in Italy tell a different story. It might not be numbers, but it is more reliable indication of what letting this go rampant means.
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