I work as a resident in a teaching hospital in NYC and I was working a med floors rotation back in the early spring when corona first was a thing. The only thing we have to fear is fear itself was basically the sum of the whole thing. Yes SARS-2 was a new thing that did kill old and sick people but old and sick people die from all sorts of shit that wouldn't bother a 50 year old, or anyone younger. It did randomly kill a younger patient but to me this falls well within the range for people with undiagnosed clotting disorders and medical errors. Speaking of medical errors staffing was a nightmare, there was a huge panic among staff as medicine is predominantly women and timid men, this led to really bad staffing issues with everyone calling out, so things were extra chaotic and errors no doubt went up dramatically. Not to mention that basically all non emergency surgical procedures got cancelled. This meant that things that could have been handled before they became emergencies had to wait until they progressed to emergency status with the subsequent poorer outcomes. Not to mention patients being too afraid to go to their appointments and refill their prescriptions. Those made up the majority of my patients at the time, decompensated heart failure, COPD exacerbations and so on. I was working the noncovid team because covid patients all underwent a basically identical protocol so there was little educational value. Not to mention the hospital admitted everyone with a positive test symptomatic or no. If you're conspiratorily minded you could say it was to pad hospitalization rates, if you're cynical you could say it was to make sure they had enough patients to keep the place profitable. All other services were empty. Like I said virtually all surgical procedures were cancelled and those are basically the only profitable services. I can say more stuff in the comments, feel free to ask questions.