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Comment by grey-area | Hacker News Reader

This is the best solution we can hope for now with Coronavirus IMO.

Slow the infection rate (but not too much) till we hit enough cases to have herd immunity, which will then slow the rate significantly till it mostly dies out (I suspect this has happened in China and South Korea, if not they will suffer the consequences later as the virus is reintroduced unnoticed from another country).

Since it won't be stamped out worldwide this year, there's no point in attempting complete eradication and tracing all contacts. That means the aim of reducing the spread should not be to avoid infections, but to to reach herd immunity in an ordered way without taxing healthcare systems too much on the way.

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> I suspect this has happened in China and South Korea

How could it have if only a negligible fraction of the population caught it?

No an epidemiologist, but I think the theory is you only need herd immunity in the local area, if travel is also restricted, for the infection to burn itself out.

We really have no idea what fraction of the population caught it, since so many show minimal symptoms.

If it were not a significant fraction in infected areas I’d expect it to flare up again quickly. Quarantine simply cannot be maintained indefinitely, nor is it going to stop all spread.

Do we know how many people are already susceptible to it? It’s plausible that some percentage of people are immune to it already — maybe they recently caught a similar coronavirus or some other natural resistance to it.

Something seems a little off. If this thing truly incubates for up to 14 days, during which time it can be transmitted, it seems odd that so few people are ill.

Is it possible that many people, in fact, are infected but do not get sick?

It is likely that the early symptoms get ignored, as they are similar to a cold - except the nasal discharge and phlegm, which SARS-CoV-2 does not seem to cause. (It gives dry cough instead of wet cough.)

14 days is not typical. It's more a conservative upper bound used for quarantine.

Most people do not get sick.

That's a very good question. I have not seen anyone address it yet. I guess there should be probably similar research on other viruses.

This recipe is a fantasy.

And it is not what has happened in any population except maybe a few groups of medical workers who were treating patients in outbreak zones.

But it's a fantasy because of how slow the controlled spread would have to be.

Some of the best medical systems in the world have been pushed into chaos with less than 1/1000th of the population infected. This level has increased the mortality rate by two to ten fold, depending on age group (with younger groups seeing a much greater increase).

If each 1/1000th of the population takes weeks to be infected and recover, then this plan will take at least a decade to reach the levels of exposure required for herd immunity. And by that point, the virus will likely have mutated into something that those previously infected can catch, destroying the benefit of the plan.

The only solution right now is total quarantine. Even maintaining infection rates of 1/1000th of the population is going to require that.

Some of the best medical systems in the world have been pushed into chaos with less than 1/1000th of the population infected

It's really impossible to give figures like that with any certainty, given so many people seem to be asymptomatic, and how concentrated some of the outbreaks have been. Which area are you considering where you think infections are 1/1000?

Whether it's a fantasy or not, our best hope at this stage is controlling spread. Total quarantine is simply not possible, since people need to go out for food, and will also increase infections within family groups stuck together in close quarters. There is no simple solution.

the best option is antivirals AFAIK, which will probably become available before the vaccine

The best solution will be mass vaccination. What you’re proposing amounts to millions people dead worldwide and a total collapse of healthcare.

How do you imagine "total collapse"? Hospitals falling down, no doctors left? It sure can and does overwhelm the healthcare system. Maybe you can even call it short-term collapse, but if it keeps functioning it is not total collapse.

Mass-produced vaccines are probably around a year away, in the meantime we need a plan.

yes, sit on your ass and wait until everyone (quite literally) can be tested and immediately quarantine any and all suspected infections and their contacts, all the while planning the logistics of vaccinating hundreds of millions if not billions of people before the next flu season.

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