Realistically how long does the country need to be in 'lockdown' for?

VroomVroom wrote:

China had their first day of no new local infections for the first time in a couple months.

I don't see value in believing China. China lies alllll the time, they lied about covid-19 at its inception, they're expelling Western journalists ... why should we believe China now, even for casual conversation, let alone policy decisions.

(No offense meant China, if you're reading this. You guys have a country to run.)

We are trying to flatten the curve to allow for adequate care at hospitals. Ways we will flatten the curve beyond social distancing.

1. slow adoption of herd immunity. This will grow over time.

2. Warm weather will SLOW the spread. If the R-0 is 2.5 now, this may help it down to 2 or less.

3. Identifying some sort of treatment to:

a. reduce death rate - ideally below 1%

b. reduce hospitality rate - 20% now, down to say 10%

c. quicker recovery times. Average hospitalization is 6 days. reducing that to 3 days.

Point 3 is the biggest. Getting people out of the hospitals faster, and lowering the need for hospitalization. This alone can double our capacity for care. Lack of capacity is the reason we need to flatten the curve.

And by May, hopefully all 3 can begin to work together to really slow it down.

I don't know if they're actually Russian trolls, or simply fortuitously aligned along the axis Russia wants (promote hate and stupidity among Americans)..

Unbelievable. We’re actually IN World War Three, fighting for our lives and societies against an alien invader, and you see this as part of some US/Russia conflict? Russia is on the same side as every other country in this one, and international cooperation is essential. Your own President is a bigger risk to you than theirs at this moment.

- Andy

eurodonkey wrote:

I don't know if they're actually Russian trolls, or simply fortuitously aligned along the axis Russia wants (promote hate and stupidity among Americans)..

Unbelievable. We’re actually IN World War Three, fighting for our lives and societies against an alien invader, and you see this as part of some US/Russia conflict? Russia is on the same side as every other country in this one, and international cooperation is essential. Your own President is a bigger risk to you than theirs at this moment.

- Andy

Stupid post - you know absolutely nothing about world war history. This is not WW3, we are not fighting our lives, Europe is not fighting for their lives, there is no invader.

If you had taken anytime to research World War 2 you would have saw what an invader really looked in Europe - Nazi Germany! A real invader that has guns, tanks, artillery, planes, etc. that kill and inflict damage to tens of millions of people. Europeans were fighting for their lives every single day - they didn't know if they would live to see their next birthday. 70–85 million people perished, which was about 3% of the 1940 world population!!!

The real problem is the failed medical system that should have been on top of this virus by testing antiviral drugs for treatment and starting preparations for a vaccine months ago!

The number of cases as a function of time can be modeled quite well with the well-known logistic function. This means that, initially, the number of cases N grows exponentially (e.g., N' = N). Then, due to mitigating factors (like the maximum number of cases in a finite population), the rate in the number of new cases decreases until there are no new cases. The number of cases obtained in this situation is known as the "capacity" which we usually parameterize as K.

Here's the amusing part. You can take any logistic curve, and as long as it is on the exponential part of the curve (which is easy to estimate from even a bit of data), any value of K that is sufficiently larger than the current number of cases is compatible with the data. Only when the data reliably shows that we're off the exponential can we estimate K (which is typically around twice the number at which point it went from being exponential to flattening out).

So, we don't know which world we live in right now. We could be nearly half way through the total number of cases, or only 1%. We could see millions die, or only thousands.

This is why many advocate for an abundance of caution.

This is not some conspiracy. Only some ignorant twat stepping outside of his lane would think this, which is admittedly many. We absolutely may, with the benefit of hindsight, regret reacting so aggressively to the threat, or we may regret not reacting more aggressively.

And, regardless, countries like the USA, who had the benefit of witnessing many countries experience great difficulty with the outbreak, had no excuse for its bungling management of the threat. This is what happens when you run your country like a money laundering business.

I see no reason to continue the lockdown beyond November 3rd. What would be the point?

belial, yes, this exactly.

Please use online grocery ordering if possible. Where do people still group together? Grocery stores. Protect yourself and the store workers by ordering online, curbside pickup. It's really no more difficult than going into the store.