It turns out that getting the number of infected down close to zero would also be good for the economy.
I don't understand why so many people think that the best possible plan is for everyone to get infected. The best possibilities involve a few percentage points of the global population getting infected, no where near everyone.
Respiratory viruses, once endemic, have never been completely suppressed. Even China is seeing a resurgence in cases. What we’re doing now isn’t sustainable or ethical, and we have to move on to smarter tactics soon.
My point is that if we move forward as if letting lots of people get infected is a 'smarter tactic', it's going to be worse in all ways. More death, more economic damage.
Since it looks like we’re close to this (even in places like NYC that are sitting on a vent stockpile) we can start loosening the economy back.
The point of “flattening the curve” is not — and was never — to reduce the area under the curve. This is a contagious respiratory virus, and it’s going to spread until there is herd immunity. Maybe there will be a vaccine in 12-18 months. Maybe not. But regardless, we can’t go on for that long with over 30% of society out of work.
Most people are going to get this virus. If you don’t understand that, you are scientifically illiterate. You are pushing on the ocean to prevent the tide.
Trying to forestall the inevitable by keeping us all locked in our homes will inflict such massive economic and social collateral damage that it’s simply unthinkable. We won’t stop the virus, and we’ll burn down our society trying.
Umm, no.
The number of people who pretend South Korea does not exist is too damn high these days...
We have managed to eliminate one human virus in history: smallpox. And we only did that through mass vaccination.
We have never eliminated a respiratory virus, nor have we ever developed a successful vaccine against a coronavirus, despite huge financial incentives to do it.
The inevitable outcome here is herd immunity. Maybe we’ll get there by vaccine, but not for a long time.
We had 18 new patients yesterday.
(I'd normally write a snarky comment here, but the numbers speak for themselves.)
I was going to make a comment on this article about the meme being too effective, in that it convinced people that the only point was to reduce the load on the medical system. Of course the goal is to reduce the load on the medical system, but that's step one, to get though the first wave of infections and to a situation where the spread is potentially controllable.
There's talk of multiple strains or of it mutating in ways which aren't necessarily more deadly but make reinfection possible independently of the currently found 2% who seem to be testing positive again after "recovering" from covid
Then the powers that be will realize just how deep of a shit situation we are in. The people who are protesting now are likely infecting themselves or will soon know a loved one with this and soon they will personally realize how stupid they were to protest this. It's only a matter of time...
That's like asking why does everyone think the best plan is for the sun to rise tomorrow morning.
It's not a "plan", it is fact. Everyone (to some level of precision) will be either have anti-bodies from infection or have been vaccinated (or the unrealistic enough to ignore; remain in isolation their entire life).
We don't have a choice in that. We can try to alter the parameters (rate, timing, etc.) of that. But, that is the limit of our control.
We don't run massive test and trace programs against cold viruses because they are relatively less harmful. We easily have the resources to run a massive test, trace, isolate and support program against COVID-19, and we can eradicate it using those methods.
And if a vaccine comes out before suppression is complete, so much the better.
The fact that we have only ever eradicated a pandemic by using vaccines is no reason to not try doing it without one. It's very hard to understand why people aren't screaming to spend a few hundred billion dollars to start doing this right now, as the payoff is essentially incalculable.
I think some people must consider the economy to exist in a vacuum. But economics is based on confidence in the future.
A robust, unified, can-do response would do wonders to shore up that confidence.