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Comment by strangeloops85 | Hacker News Reader

This is completely unwarranted fatalism. Taiwan and Singapore bent the curve, and Korea is doing it now as well. Learn from them and implement! Really don't understand this logic at all - containment is possible.

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One way to contain is to take the potential risk serious. If that fails, it's still better to slow down the spread.

Preparing a country for this potential outcome is a good thing. If it didn't end up at 60-70%, it will be in part because of a very strong response.

If you said this last week about Singapore I would agree with you. Have you looked at their graph in the last few days?

It's still mostly contained (most cases are connected to existing clusters) but the government is foreshadowing that containment is becoming a major problem without being able to rely on geographic travel screening. Many imported cases (UK, Italy, Thailand) in the last few days.

The curve is still very much bent when we look at how early this started in the country and it will continue to be flatter than in any place not putting distancing and testing in place on time

That of course assumes all countries can implement this kind of measure as effectively as e.g. Taiwan did. Which gets harder and harder, especially if you can't travel back and time and start it at the right time. The line between fatalism and realism about how much you'll be able to do can be thin. (Although I think that at least parts of Germany would have a fair chance at such measures still)

Until you bend the curve down all the way to 0 new infections per day, you'll eventually reach 60-70%.

Right, but the longer it takes to get there, the more likely you are to either find a cure. Failing that, you at least reduce pressure on medical infrastructure, which means more people get meaningful care.

Bent what curve?

"South Korea on Wednesday reported 242 additional coronavirus cases, almost double the number of new cases reported on Tuesday, as the emergence of a new outbreak in Seoul worries officials." from [1]

[1] https://www.ft.com/content/986b533f-1d3e-3920-ae80-da8dcd8af...

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