I agree.
 

I totally agree. The more who are infected, the greater the chance and the longer I choose to stay completely away - which is a bummer.

I advocate entertainment and activity at the Square. I must stress I assume/pray that people can responsibly Social distance so it works for all of us.

Stats — I’m watching it all. I was shocked to find Sumter County had 9 ICU beds available the other day. Nine. That got my attention. I appreciate a few Posters here who provide solid perspective as we all navigate this novel situation. Each day I reevaluate and adjust. So far, I choose to stay in and away 100%. It’s the only defense I can count on.

That surprises you????? I did my residency in a 600 bed University hospital with 32 ICU beds and 44 step down beds.. Guess how many were available at any given time?------ZERO, and that was just any normal year. There are so many variables in deciding whether or not to admit a patient to ICU and whether or not to keep them there that it is useless to use as a metric.

exactly my thought too...

no one should be waiting around for someone else to make a 'command decision' that things are being shut down...take control of your own life...do what you feel is right for you

just don't expect that everyone one is going to go about it the same way you are...chances are they may have different opinions and risk tolerance than you, or may choose to ignore it all and continue on with life as usual.

so, if you are uncomfortable that others may be playing tennis, pickle ball, going to restaurants, not wearing a mask, attending church services, going to the gym, etc. then just stay clear of those people...it's really that simple

not sure who they are? Then practice social distancing, wear your mask, wash your hands, avoid crowds...grocery shop on odd hours or have it delivered...

you may not like their behavior, but just don't make an issue out of it

IMHO, it really isn't difficult to play it safe, there's a lot that you can still do... get out and walk around the neighborhood, pack a lunch and go on a picnic, you can go for drive and explore parts of Central FL that you haven't seen...grab some takeout for lunch

Yes. It surprised me. Nine isn’t very many during a Pandemic in a community filled with elderly at-risk population. When available ICU beds goes to 8, 3, to 1. I’ll know things are picking up around here. Alternatively, if more of the 24 ICU beds reported in Sumter County at Clickorlando.com become more readily available, it will seem things are less dire than presented. It’s One personal yardstick for me.

Actually, you won't. It's a lousy metric. At any given time, at least 50% of the people in an ICU don't really need to be there. You are assuming everyone in ICU is critical and on a ventilator and 4 or 5 drips. That simply isn't the case. Physicians are generally reluctant to move their patients out of the ICU setting, the feeling is that they get better nursing care in the unit, more attention, better monitoring, etc. In addition, when a patient dies the day after being transferred out of ICU, the optics are real, REAL bad. As chief of staff at a community hospital of 250 beds and 20 ICU beds, I frequently had to go and review cases in the units and "suggest" to the attending physician that a patient be moved to a floor when critical cases were waiting in the ER. And even then there was a great deal of resistance. Monitoring ICU bed availability looks good on the surface, but once you know the real inner workings of a hospital, you would agree it is a lousy metric.

Maybe. I’m not going to argue with you friend. It’s a personal measure for me. I’ll keep watching it. I understand there are variables. This whole mess is full of variables. Like I said, I’ll stay safe at home and figure it out, day by day. You can do as you like.

And what exactly would you have done different??

Seriously? The first thing that should have been done was to mandate mask wearing when social distancing is not guaranteed and not told us that wearing masks was not necessary for people who were not showing symptoms. That was so wrong on every level. They were not being proactive to mitigate this virus.....just the opposite.

Secondly....our current administration should have set a good example by wearing masks in public and insisted on social distancing. Requesting was not good enough.

Shutting down our economy was a needless mitigation process. We are in worse shape now, as a country, than we were in March when all this started and now our government is reluctant to shutting down the economy.