We stopped face to face contact for the year at schools. Going to online only at the K-12 level. Didn’t anticipate KS being early on this stuff.
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We closed for two weeks but I told my kid that it will probably end up being two months or essentially, the rest of the year. I have a feeling this has been the plan all along but they are doing it in steps.
If we had the ability to do massive testing it might not be necessary.
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My university just announced it would go online for the rest of the semester.
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One thought about the relevance of climate change is that with a seemingly early spring, at least here in south eastern Canada, people will be less cloistered indoors as they get outside more. Or rather, will people not stay in indoor areas where they are already social distancing? Two ways to look at it.
I wonder if also more warm weather animals that might incubate new diseases will extend their ranges into more of the temperate zones
Anyone have a link to the full paper?
This site has proven it’s reputable over the last week on the number of worldwide cases. It’s updated far more frequently than anything else you’ll find.
The good news is that the Italy lockdown may be working as new cases have been relatively flat the last three days. Bad news is in Germany, Spain, France, and the US cases are still growing exponentially.
This is potentially devastating but on an Internet forum it makes for a great thought experiment. Government regulations in some countries may be able to slow or even stop this still. Most of the western world is not subject to the regulations that would allow a total lockdown and tracking of the infected like China and South Korea have imposed. We barely even have testing in the US.
90% can do what’s best for the community, but it only takes a few rogue dissenters to maintain the curve we see now.
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Thank you. It’s been a few years since I searched pubmed. Almost forgot about it.
People can’t even come up with good conspiracy theories anymore. Isn’t it far more likely that the Chinese intentionally let it transmit to humans, knowing they could contain it within their own country just prior to a major outbreak with only “minor” casualties? It would then spread to the Western Hemisphere where it cant be contained by government force, devastating us economically, and giving them a clear path to being the economic superpower of the world?
"Summary Report
The global impact of COVID-19 has been profound, and the public health threat it represents is the most serious seen in a respiratory virus since the 1918 H1N1 influenza pandemic. Here we present the results of epidemiological modelling which has informed policymaking in the UK and other countries in recent weeks. In the absence of a COVID-19 vaccine, we assess the potential role of a number of public health measures – so-called non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) – aimed at reducing contact rates in the population and thereby reducing transmission of the virus. In the results presented here, we apply a previously published microsimulation model to two countries: the UK (Great Britain specifically) and the US. We conclude that the effectiveness of any one intervention in isolation is likely to be limited, requiring multiple interventions to be combined to have a substantial impact on transmission.
Two fundamental strategies are possible: (a) mitigation, which focuses on slowing but not necessarily stopping epidemic spread – reducing peak healthcare demand while protecting those most at risk of severe disease from infection, and (b) suppression, which aims to reverse epidemic growth, reducing case numbers to low levels and maintaining that situation indefinitely. Each policy has major challenges. We find that that optimal mitigation policies (combining home isolation of suspect cases, home quarantine of those living in the same household as suspect cases, and social distancing of the elderly and others at most risk of severe disease) might reduce peak healthcare demand by 2/3 and deaths by half. However, the resulting mitigated epidemic would still likely result in hundreds of thousands of deaths and health systems (most notably intensive care units) being overwhelmed many times over. For countries able to achieve it, this leaves suppression as the preferred policy option.
We show that in the UK and US context, suppression will minimally require a combination of social distancing of the entire population, home isolation of cases and household quarantine of their family members. This may need to be supplemented by school and university closures, though it should be recognised that such closures may have negative impacts on health systems due to increased absenteeism. The major challenge of suppression is that this type of intensive intervention package – or something equivalently effective at reducing transmission – will need to be maintained until a vaccine becomes available (potentially 18 months or more) – given that we predict that transmission will quickly rebound if interventions are relaxed. We show that intermittent social distancing – triggered by trends in disease surveillance – may allow interventions to be relaxed temporarily in relative short time windows, but measures will need to be reintroduced if or when case numbers rebound. Last, while experience in China and now South Korea show that suppression is possible in the short term, it remains to be seen whether it is possible long-term, and whether the social and economic costs of the interventions adopted thus far can be reduced.
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Rebuttal of Ferguson et al.
BTW, a friend tested positive this evening - an avid skier and (unfortunately) a Crossfit cultist.
So far he’s reporting severe chills alternating with spells of fever.
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Yeah but the reason was not to start a debate on an unrelated topic.
Yes, never think for yourself. Always obey.
I suggested nothing.
Discussion and a heated argument are different things. Every interaction I have with you turns into the latter, and I’m not in the mood for that.
You make some reasonable points. I’m not an expert on this stuff, and nobody here is, I was just considering what other options there are. Nothing looks good, and hopefully what we are doing is the best choice.
No but think logically about the sense it makes. And if basically everyone who is an expert agrees on what to do here. If the all the smartest people think one thing it’s usually a good idea to listen.
You said none of us are experts here which is true. But experts are pretty much all saying the same thing. That’s what I meant by it doesn’t make sense to wonder at this point. The conversation could shift as to how long to use social distancing but it’s really to early to think that way. Most places haven’t even truly started at least not in America. Doing anything else right now is a massive risk we don’t need to take. Wouldn’t it be far better to use caution and look back and say we didn’t need to do all that as opposed to looking back and saying if only we’d acted as everyone said we’d be much better off?
You already made your point, give it a rest. What I was considering is probably a bad idea, but I wasn’t arguing for anything. I hope that things work out much better with what is being done, but the risk is that maybe it won’t.
What is it with you and not wanting people to talk on message boards? If you don’t want people posting comments directed at what you’re saying then don’t make comments.
To paraphrase Patton, a good plan executed now is better than a perfect plan executed later.
Why do you like running aorund in circles with the same old tired argument that goes nowhere?
You are a very boring person to talk to. I’m just going to stop responding to you because it is a waste of time and energy.
You think everything is a debate, it’s not.
It didn’t go nowhere. You changed your mind based on discussion and evidence. Kudos many do not. Or at least shifted your thought process. I did the same. See my initial posts in here vs my posts now. To me that’s the reason for reading and posting here. Reading/learning/asking questions.
I think it’s a discussion. That’s what we do on PWI discuss world events. We aren’t being scored at home.