Earlier quoted context omitted.
Total quarantine isn't happening in any western country
... except Italy
and France
Ask HN: What happens next after a successful lockdown?
71–80 of 211 posts
Re: Ask HN: What happens next after a successful lockdown?
#72Resume work after countries have the capacity to test everyone who has a fever. Maintain strong hygiene and social distance if possible. Firefight clusters of outbreaks where they occur. Wait for treatment and vaccine.
> Wait for treatment and vaccine. Isn't this a virus? There's not a single virus that we have a treatment for - we know how to deal with bacteria but not viruses.
You mean like aciclovir for herpes, or the various antivirals for HIV, or the monoclonal antibodies for ebola?
Re: Ask HN: What happens next after a successful lockdown?
#73I thought this interview was illuminating for post-lockdown life in China https://twitter.com/MikeIsaac/status/1238604080571772928?s=2... It shows just how far behind we are. TLDW: Temperature checks everywhere. Fever clinics optimized for quarantining the potentially infected. China is trying to actually contain the virus. The only way out for us unless we significantly ramp up testing and lockdown is to admit defea…
Or just watch this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfsdJGj3-jM
This is a really interesting video. I'm not sure how accurately it represents the situation on the ground in China, of course. But the video shows a society with temperature checks at every place of business, a location-tracking system, an isolation system, and a number of other precautions.
It's a picture of a society on a war footing, certainly. But people aren't locked in their apartments, and the hospital system isn't collapsing under its own weight.
So far, this is the most optimistic answer I've seen to "What comes after total lockdown but before a vaccine?"
Re: Ask HN: What happens next after a successful lockdown?
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
Was this the article you were reading with the 3600 days analysis? I just read it. Not sure what to make of it yet. https://medium.com/@joschabach/flattening-the-curve-is-a-dea...
The "Containment works" part seems questionable. In particular, South Korea almost certainly wasn't "tracking its first 30 cases very well, until patient 31 infected over 1000 others on a church congregation". Patient 31 didn't have any known source of exposure - she hadn't travelled abroad or had any contact with known cases, didn't even meet South Korea's criteria for testing, the most likely place she got Covid-19…
A very important part of the public discourse is how many tests can conducted and at what cost.
For something with a long incubation period and potentially mild symptoms (ie, infected might not go to a hospital) only widespread statistical sampling will give a reliable picture of what is happening.
When I heard countries talking about 'testing criteria' that involved travel - I think this was in mid/late February - it seemed inevitable that things were going to drift out of control. There was no way that would pick up the mild inbound cases that could spread to become clusters. It probably developed that way because actual monitoring programs were infeasible but it'd be nice to know.
Re: Ask HN: What happens next after a successful lockdown?
#75I remember all of the statistical problems centered around virality that we would have to do in college. The problems always seemed so make-believe and dystopian.
Now my company is close to going out of business and I have just been laid off. Partly due to high-ranking officials not believing in the virality of nCov-19.
I can't get W.B. Yeats "The Second Coming" from 1919 out of my head:
"Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand; A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?"
Re: Ask HN: What happens next after a successful lockdown?
#76I thought this interview was illuminating for post-lockdown life in China https://twitter.com/MikeIsaac/status/1238604080571772928?s=2... It shows just how far behind we are. TLDW: Temperature checks everywhere. Fever clinics optimized for quarantining the potentially infected. China is trying to actually contain the virus. The only way out for us unless we significantly ramp up testing and lockdown is to admit defea…
The total lockdown system seems almost untenable as it is.
Let's say China has managed to isolate the virus to some pockets... that means the rest of China is not exposed and vulnerable for who knows how long.
The sheer amount of effort to prevent what seems like the inevitable might be wasted effort.
That's not to dismiss the casualties or the impact of a widespread outbreak or the desire to SLOW it. But man do you spend forever and all that effort isolating A from B & C ... and then B from A ... until there are huge amounts of vaccine available (late fall?)
Re: Ask HN: What happens next after a successful lockdown?
#77I’m surprised that no one here is mentioning the example of South Korea. [1] They are not in total lockdown, but they are doing extensive testing and contact tracing, and substantial isolation of anyone who might be contagious. Once we get testing infrastructure ramped up, this is not an unreasonable plan in the United States. [1]: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-51836898
Because it's too late. The time for that in the US was at least two weeks ago. This is why the US response to this has been driving so many of us crazy. The later you respond the fewer options you have.
To be fair, every western country has missed this boat as far as I can tell. People are similarly confused and angry in the country (in Europe) I live in even though the testing rate is far higher here.
Re: Ask HN: What happens next after a successful lockdown?
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
Germany is close, they just announce new measures bit by bit every day. Next step not unlikely to be total quarantine.
Switzerland is in state of emergency since today, it's great because they can deploy military to help.
It's not even close to the intense measures in Italy or Spain (for example), however. There's a good bit of discontent about that among people I talk to in Switzerland, but there's no good option so that's expected whatever they decide.
Re: Ask HN: What happens next after a successful lockdown?
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
I saw a statistical analysis of the flatten the curve idea but assuming we couldn't ramp up the number of intensive care beds, it took 3600 days to fit everyone in under the "available health care" line. It's still a good strategy for right now because it gives us some extra time to ramp testing and healthcare up.
If it's drawn out slow enough, the spread should nearly stop without lockdown once 20-25 percent of the population has recovered. Assuming prior infection offers immunity of course.
I think it's a pretty safe prior to have that our immune system will work effectively against this virus post exposure. This isn't the first time a virus has crossed the species barrier in all of our evolutionary history and we've survived so far.
Re: Ask HN: What happens next after a successful lockdown?
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
I saw a statistical analysis of the flatten the curve idea but assuming we couldn't ramp up the number of intensive care beds, it took 3600 days to fit everyone in under the "available health care" line. It's still a good strategy for right now because it gives us some extra time to ramp testing and healthcare up.
If it's drawn out slow enough, the spread should nearly stop without lockdown once 20-25 percent of the population has recovered. Assuming prior infection offers immunity of course.
Why do you get 25%? I thought it largely depended on the R0 value