Ending coronavirus lockdowns will be a dangerous process of trial and error
sciencemag.org
sciencemag.org
1) Lockdown was started to reduce need for ventilators. Since they don't work 66% - 90% (80% in NY) of the time, that's moot. (But Chinese papers have published that since January, so I guess we're slow learners.)
2) 98% of people who catch corona virus recover fine on their own. Of the remaining 2%, most are older, just like the flu every year.
3) The US is not S. Korea - we're not setup for testing or tracing, and won't be for months. We'll run out of food and most small businesses will be ruined for no good reason.
4) Corona virus has spread world-wide. There is no way to predict if it will come back next month or not, so let's get rolling on herd immunity.
My practical suggestions are, to use a medical metaphor, just rip the bandaid off:
1) Spend a week creating dedicated quarantine hospitals, just like Wuhan did in Dec./Jan.
2) Tell everybody to sew a mask.
3) End the lockdown after communnicating the above, and let the flu runs its course, just like every other year in human history.
I understand that it's human nature "to want to do something", but we have no cure for this.
We also basically have no treatment, and that's why people are freaked out.
I'm personally encouraged by the speed at which people have risen to the occasion, adapted and begin developing new hypotheses. I think if we can figure out a more effective treatment modality, people will calm down dramatically.
Not so:
https://www.cancernetwork.com/news/clinical-trial-explores-a...
Edit: Besides, what if the cure already exists, and Big Pharma wants to make more money selling long-term treatment drugs and equipment?
We are seeing an 80% death rate for people on ventilators. This means when the worst happens, most people die, even with heroic measures and the most advanced technology available.
When they have a more reliable means to treat people in serious distress, I think people will be more amenable to easing the lockdown. Until then, it's a big fat fuck you to people in high risk categories.
I am hearing that doctors are comparing it to high altitude sickness and trying to come up with a more accurate mental model that may yield more effective treatment than ventilators. I hope that happens rapidly. A big breakthrough in that area, where we know what the hell to do for you when things get really bad, would make a very big difference in this situation.
Edit in reply to your edit:
I don't think that's at all what is going on.
I think I have some idea of what would help. It's mostly not more serious drugs.
As a former homemaker, no one much cares what I think. But just as one human to another in a stupid online discussion, I'm all for blaming big pharma for a lot of things, but not this time.
Lord knows I hope something pans out, it's not even remotely true that we have a treatment.
People should really stop with these "bad history because I dont know history" claims. Every other year, we close schools in areas where flu is spreading too much. Usually it is enough to close them for a week or two in a small area. Flu is kinda easy to contain. Every other year, we also vaccinate against flu and close hospitals/retirement homes for visitations.
In the past, like in the history, people also reacted or attempted to react to various epidemics up to their knowledge.
I really wish we tried higher vaccination rates. Yeah the vaccine is hit or miss on the actual successful strain of the year but it would be nice if the excuse "It's just the flu" meant nothing because the flu killed 2000 people instead of 34000 on a good year.