ADVERTISEMENT

It seems the pioneers have flattened the curve on Coronavirus game.

The numbers for the US are definitely sobering. Our cases grew by 41% in one day. We now have the second highest number of cases, next to Italy. The death rate today grew by 24%. We are testing at 1/3 rate of the next lowest country. How is this the United States? And we still are being told anyone who wants tested can be tested. Story after story on social media of people with symptoms not being tested until they are in critical condition.
 
This is a very good article sent to me by my ex and a doctor on the frontline here. And it has lots of charts. (I love charts and I have cliff noted it for you lazy fecks)

Coronavirus: The Hammer and the Dance
What the Next 18 Months Can Look Like, if Leaders Buy Us Time

Within a week, countries around the world have gone from: “This coronavirus thing is not a big deal” to declaring the state of emergency. Yet many countries are still not doing much. Why?

Every country is asking the same question: How should we respond? The answer is not obvious to them.

Some countries, like France, Spain or the Philippines, have since ordered heavy lockdowns. Others, like the US, UK, Switzerland or Netherlands, have dragged their feet, hesitantly venturing into social distancing measures.


Here’s what we’re going to cover today, again with lots of charts, data and models with plenty of sources:

  1. What’s the current situation?
  2. What options do we have?
  3. What’s the one thing that matters now: Time
  4. What does a good coronavirus strategy look like?
  5. How should we think about the economic and social impacts?
When you’re done reading the article, this is what you’ll take away:
  • Our healthcare system is already collapsing.
  • Countries have two options: either they fight it hard now, or they will suffer a massive epidemic.
  • If they choose the epidemic, hundreds of thousands will die. In some countries, millions.
  • And that might not even eliminate further waves of infections.
  • If we fight hard now, we will curb the deaths.
  • We will relieve our healthcare system.
  • We will prepare better.

We will learn.
  • The world has never learned as fast about anything, ever.
  • And we need it, because we know so little about this virus.
  • All of this will achieve something critical: Buy Us Time.

If we choose to fight hard, the fight will be sudden, then gradual.
  • We will be locked in for weeks, not months.
  • Then, we will get more and more freedoms back.
  • It might not be back to normal immediately.
  • But it will be close, and eventually back to normal.
  • And we can do all that while considering the rest of the economy too.

1*a9Lcz2g8DkKdnW0o_vk3ow.png



Bottom line:

Right now, the UK and the US have no idea about their true cases. We don’t know how many there are. We just know the official number is not right, and the true one is in the tens of thousands of cases. This has happened because we’re not testing, and we’re not tracing.

Think this: https://infographics.channelnewsasi...??cid=h3_referral_inarticlelinks_24082018_cna

The measures from this section (testing and tracing) single-handedly curbed the growth of the coronavirus in South Korea and got the epidemic under control, without a strong imposition of social distancing measures.

Conclusion: Buy Us Time
The coronavirus is still spreading nearly everywhere. 152 countries have cases. We are against the clock. But we don’t need to be: there’s a clear way we can be thinking about this.

Some countries, especially those that haven’t been hit heavily yet by the coronavirus, might be wondering: Is this going to happen to me? The answer is: It probably already has. You just haven’t noticed. When it really hits, your healthcare system will be in even worse shape than in wealthy countries where the healthcare systems are strong. Better safe than sorry, you should consider taking action now.

For the countries where the coronavirus is already here, the options are clear.

On one side, countries can go the mitigation route: create a massive epidemic, overwhelm the healthcare system, drive the death of millions of people, and release new mutations of this virus in the wild.

On the other, countries can fight. They can lock down for a few weeks to buy us time, create an educated action plan, and control this virus until we have a vaccine.

Governments around the world today, including some such as the US, the UK, Switzerland or Netherlands have so far chosen the mitigation path.

That means they’re giving up without a fight. They see other countries having successfully fought this, but they say: “We can’t do that!

What if Churchill had said the same thing? “Nazis are already everywhere in Europe. We can’t fight them. Let’s just give up.” This is what many governments around the world are doing today. They’re not giving you a chance to fight this. You have to demand it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: meridian
The numbers for the US are definitely sobering. Our cases grew by 41% in one day. We now have the second highest number of cases, next to Italy. The death rate today grew by 24%. We are testing at 1/3 rate of the next lowest country. How is this the United States? And we still are being told anyone who wants tested can be tested. Story after story on social media of people with symptoms not being tested until they are in critical condition.

Zeke -- testing isn't the panacea of epidemic management. Its the beginning.

Its like a weighing machine -- it only tells you the weight. A lot of people don't have a clue of what pandemic management is all about -- testing is just for collecting raw data.

The question now is what do you do with that information. It's a critical step for the beginnings of deciding on policies, choices and decisions. The other problem is that there was a complete lack of learning from case studies -- countries that did it wrong and those who did it right. There was more than 2 months advance notice on this.

Instead of containment, the US went basically into mitigation.

Whether this is a lack of emergency management capability or a cultural issue, its probably answer E, all of the above.
 
ADVERTISEMENT

Latest posts

ADVERTISEMENT