Piwin -> RE: COVID-19 start of a new era (Mar. 20 2020 7:11:07)
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[:D] Well, I guess he must be doing something if so many of you are reacting this way! I don't see it. Just a few posts up, we have a fellow foro member arguing that the best way forward is to allow the virus to spread at a controlled rate. That's an idea I've found somewhat regularly in some media sources as well (they justify current measures not as a way to eradicate the virus, but simply as a way to "slow it down", awaiting either a vaccine, herd immunity or something like that). The way I interpreted it, the article I linked to just offers some rough ideas as to why controlled propagation is not a viable solution and why instead we should favour full containment, and that's why I posted it. Of course there are other factors that comes to mind when thinking of why controlled propagation isn't a viable solution. For instance, whether long-term immunity to this virus is even possible (like Brendan I thought this was a question mark at this point). If we don't know that, then going after herd immunity seems like one hell of a gambit. Then there's the fact that the more people get infected, the more chances there are for further mutations, which we probably don't want to risk. All in all, it seems to me that our ambition should be full containment and eradication of this virus, not just slowing down its propagation I don't have any medical expertise at all. And a lot of things that might seem commonsensical to me may in fact be flat-out wrong. So this isn't the hill I'm going to die on! These are just fun musings to pass the time, but all that really matters to me right now is to follow the rules for containment issued by authorities I want to trust. And that's probably why I found this article refreshing when a lot of you found it contrarian. It doesn't beat around the bush, at a time when trust in authorities is, perhaps not eroding, but, well, let's say they could be more straightforward. For weeks now I've been surrounded by messaging that I just feel isn't telling me the truth. And I think I can guess why: it's not some grand conspiracy or anything sinister, it's just that the authorities, and media, don't want to needlessly scare people. Ironically though, it ends up being scarier now because we all suspect they're not telling us the truth and many of us are left with a sense of not having any firm ground to stand on. Take for example the fact that both in Spain and in France they announced full lock-down for 2 weeks. Now go looking for a Frenchman or Spaniard who actually believes the lock-down will be over in 2 weeks. Good luck! ^^ Nobody believes it will be over by then... And so you ask yourself: why then did they tell us just 2 weeks? Or why are they saying it's just about managing hospital case load and not about entirely containing and annihilating this thing from the planet? Personally, if you tell me: "we're going to have a full lock-down for 6 weeks (pick a number, but certainly more than 2...). We can't afford to just slow this thing down, we have to eradicate it", well, that would pump me up with drive, courage and even hope. Instead what I'm getting is a measly "we're having a sort-of shutdown for 2 weeks, maybe a bit longer, we don't really know, and really it's just about making sure that the hospitals aren't overloaded coz in the end it's going to spread either way"...[8|] In that context, an article with probably some poetic license but that's driving home the point that the endgame has to be containment, I'll admit, I find that refreshing. On a related note, I suspect that if many (most?) of you go back to the beginning of this thread and look at your replies, you may find yourself thinking that, if you knew then what you know now, you might have replied differently. I still strongly disagree with sartorius, very much so, and I found the message about "lethargy" to be insulting to the fellow humans I know who are struggling everyday just to get by and manage to find even a shred of happiness on this odd planet. But I also think that, if those who inform me hadn't downplayed the gravity of the situation, as they seem to be doing even to this day, I would have replied very differently to him. Anyway, I don't have much else to add on SARS-2 or whatever we're calling it. So I'll move on now after this long rant [:D] oh, @kitarist, in the dust-kicking update, I hope you didn't miss this link: https://alhill.shinyapps.io/COVID19seir/ I thought the mathematically minded like you and Richard might enjoy that. edit: quote:
you get a lot less infections in total, not just a slower pace of spread Not important, but I don't understand this point. He's working backwards from a fixed amount that is his (granted, rather casually defined) estimate of total cases required for herd immunity. How can there be any less cases in this argument? If there were any less, then we would not reach herd immunity. It has to be a fixed value otherwise he would be arguing something entirely different, no?
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