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Italy is proof that we need to slow this down for months longer. Our medical system was projected to only have enough N95 masks and related supplies for two weeks of a pandemic... sure enough, we're having to cobble together makeshift supplies MacGyver style here in Washington.

In a couple weeks, more of our front-line medical staff will start getting sick (the first case just occurred here), and requiring their 14-day quarantine... taking them out of rotation and adding even more strain.

It's going to get bad. We have to slow this down, to reduce the mortality rate. Or that 1% number people are throwing around is going to look like roses.

I wonder if mildly symptomatic healthcare providers should treat patients known to have the same strain. As opposed to fully benching those providers, I mean.

> Social distancing of the entire population also slows the acquisition of immunity with zero and low risk age groups, which drags the whole situation out months longer.

Dragging it out is exactly the point. The total number of active cases should be kept as low as possible in order to stay below our healthcare system's capacity. Look at Italy for what happens when cases exceed capacity. Their death rate is partly so high because they have to let the worst cases die in order to save those that have a better chance at living.

My hope is that the thinking is that we have a very disruptive social distancing phase (now), in order to give our medical system time to ramp up to handle much higher surge capacity, and then transition to a more focused isolation / social distancing policy (maybe based on regions or outbreaks).

>It might even be logical with the above 3 steps in place for zero/low risk group to deliberately seek out the virus. This grants immunity quicker, and if they become sick, they can receive treatment whilst hospitals are still underwhelmed.

This is extremely irresponsible. The long-term effects of the virus are currently unknown but there are some worrying signs of possible long-term lung and other-organ damage that have been reported (anecdotally) from China and Italy. It's going to take time for these studies to be done.

Not to mention the immunity period length is unknown at this time. If this coronavirus follows the pattern of other coronaviruses, immunity could last 6 months to a year tops. That is ... not good. And a secondary infection could be worse than the first due to immune system overresponse/cytokine storm.

It's important we take the time to study these secondary effects and allow time for treatments and/or a vaccine to be developed and studied before we come up with any long-term plan.

If the immunity period is unknown/short then isn't there some logic in trying to build heard immunity amongst the entire lower risk group before the immunity would be lost. If we shut everything down for a bit, then start returning to normal life, that would stretch out the timeline for everyone being exposed and risk creating a cycle where people get it over and over again.

With half of infections being completely asymptomatic, this doesn't work. You need to do what South Korea and some towns in Italy have been doing successfully: widespread, fast, free testing, and then anyone who tests positive is isolated for 14 days.