If the flattening isn't working is it time to face reality?

[erc]

Additionally, if herd immunity was an option for COVID-19, wouldn't it have worked in China?

Did it not? Where is China now?

 

[erc]

And in the US it looks like young adults are the ones getting COVID-19 and ending up in the hospital.

Funny I see articles trying to make that point but when I looked at Washington State's numbers 96% of the deaths were aged 60+. And really from what i have seen of young adults and their vaping, and their physical health, it doesn't surprise me that 20% of the total hospitalizations are this age group.

 

[Amymouse13]

Did it not? Where is China now?

Herd immunity also depends on virus not mutating... I read somewhere it's already mutated. No idea if previous exposure confers any resistance to mutations...

 

[Notrealname]

All of these measures were put in place to slow the progression to the point where the hospitals could keep up. If all of these things still are not working, would it be better to just let it spread so that we develop herd immunity sooner rather than later?

Herd immunity is fine if vaccination Is the source of the high proportion of immunity in the population. If high levels of immunity are because of massive infections, then what consequences will there be? Incredibly high rates of hospitalizations and death seems likely. That will also lead to tremendous economic costs.
The stay at home with exceptions approach seems preferable to me.

 

[rigs32]

Healthy people who get the virus are also at risk of permanent lung damage even if they never need hospitalization. I have no desire to test that out.

If you watched Cuomo’s press conference today you’d have seen him discuss the logic behind the gradual shut down and the reasons why we went to no essential business today.

Flattening the curve is not instantaneous. There are plenty of articles and charts that describe how it actually works with a virus like this. If we do nothing, the elderly and at risk would have to be in quarantine for 12-18 months. That’s less sustainable than everyone staying home for a few weeks.

 

[Cannot_Wait_4Disney]

 

[erc]

I read somewhere it's already mutated.

If you can't post the article you need to be careful as statements like this are the same tactic as Russian bots.

 

[luvsJack]

I'd advise you to skip the interwebs and watch his press conferences. He's a calm, reassuring voice of reason.
And no, I'm not from NY. I just appreciate his straightforward problem solving style.

I am a long way from NY but have seen some of his press conferences. He is handling his job well. And you are right, he is very reassuring and has a calming way about him.

 

[DisneyDebbie]

Healthy people who get the virus are also at risk of permanent lung damage even if they never need hospitalization. I have no desire to test that out.

If you watched Cuomo’s press conference today you’d have seen him discuss the logic behind the gradual shut down and the reasons why we went to no essential business today.

Flattening the curve is not instantaneous. There are plenty of articles and charts that describe how it actually works with a virus like this. If we do nothing, the elderly and at risk would have to be in quarantine for 12-18 months. That’s less sustainable than everyone staying home for a few weeks.

I sincerely hope that's how this plays out. I'm hearing about schools cancelling until September, non essential businesses not being able to re-open... very disheartening

 

[disneychrista]

We are weeks away from know if current measures are working or not. And even longer if people aren't heading the warning and STAYING HOME!

 

[kimblebee]

To be honest, I don’t know if I’d want to leave it up to herd immunity.

Luckily I live somewhere where social distancing and self isolating seem to be taken very seriously. For a province of around a million people, we have 20 cases and 19 are lab confirmed. Only one has had to be hospitalized and all are travel related...no community spread. Travel outside the province has been strongly discouraged too.

 

[mnrose]

I think it's WAY too soon to judge whether "flattening" is working. I think we need AT LEAST another week to see the effects. California was NOT locked down a week ago (I was there...I know). Life was pretty close to "normal." It will take at least two weeks to judge whether it's working. Now, if we get 7-10 MORE days down the road, and we see no change toward flattening, then I do think we will have to revisit this discussion. Personally, I look at the numbers, and see how quickly our death rate is doubling (one of the fastest doubling of the death's rate anywhere in the world, currently increasing at least 2.3 times every 48 hours), and get pretty frightened about where we are heading. It doesn't take long to take 400 deaths and turn it into 40,000 when it doubles every 48 hours. Means that by the end of next week, we will be greater than 4000. The week after that, at the same rate, we'd be over 40,000. See my point? That's what I'm worried about. And, I'm content to give it a little more time to work before I just throw in the towel.

 

[erc]

We are weeks away from know if current measures are working or not. And even longer if people aren't heading the warning and STAYING HOME!

I think we have to assume that not everyone is staying home. They need to take that into consideration in their models. Not everyone is staying home. No, not huge gatherings like sports events or Disney World but people will find small groups. I was watching various webcams where I live and they have this feature of letting you see the entire previous day in about a one minute video. Well in a lot of public places dog people seem to always find each other and come together way closer than 6 feet apart. All day in this public park I would see random dog people gather throughout the day. It is dog people that will doom our civilization.

 

[Lynne M]

Social distancing isn't something you do for a few days or a week, and then yay, it's all over and everybody goes back to normal life. If you're doing it right, it actually makes the epidemic last longer. Part of the point is to slow the spread of the virus, get the cases spread out over a longer period of time, so you have fewer cases hitting the hospitals all at once. If you don't that's when you get catastrophes like what's happening right now in Italy where they have to choose who they can save and let others die, because there aren't enough doctors, nurses or equipment to take care of all of them.

Herd immunity is a nice concept, but letting the virus spread like wildfire just to get it over with quickly would result in millions of deaths in the US. The virus isn't just killing elderly people. I just read about a case involving a 12-year-old with no underlying health problems who's on a ventilator.

And "locking up the elderly" isn't possible. If you're letting the virus run rampant in the younger population, who takes care of the elderly in nursing homes and other care facilities? Who cooks their meals? Who helps them bathe? Younger people, that's who. Yeah, the ones who are getting sick or carrying the virus asymptomatically because there wouldn't be any social distancing going on.

Also, when do you set the clock on social distancing? When the first state started doing it? Or the last? There's a huge range of responses from local governments all across the country. It started in my county in PA about 2 weeks ago. Some states still haven't taken any measures.

There's no easy solution here. You lock down, or you assume you're going to lose a significant portion of your population.

 

[robinb]

There is something to be said for everyone to "shelter in place" for 3 months.

https://covidactnow.org/
If Florida does nothing, it's estimated that 432,000 people will die. If they do social distancing for 3 months 320,000 people will die. I they shelter in place, only 8,000 people will die.

 

[LSUmiss]

Hah. Really at this point I want to kiss a coronavirus patient and get my free natural vaccine.

Better hurry up b/c at least here the hospitals will be at capacity within a week so if you need to be hospitalized you might be SOL.

 

[RamblingMad]

Deaths by age in NY:

https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/doh/downloads/pdf/imm/covid-19-daily-data-summary-deaths.pdf

 

[disneychrista]

I think we have to assume that not everyone is staying home.

Not everyone CAN stay home. People working essential businesses & government services aside, people should be staying home. People should not be flocking to the beach & parks. People should not go "shopping" for something to do. People SHOULD be limiting there shopping trips. We all have to be doing our part to stop the spread and flatten the curve.

 

[fly girl]

There is something to be said for everyone to "shelter in place" for 3 months.

https://covidactnow.org/
If Florida does nothing, it's estimated that 432,000 people will die. If they do social distancing for 3 months 320,000 people will die. I they shelter in place, only 8,000 people will die.

I hadn't seen that state model projection yet. Thank you for sharing.

 

[Amymouse13]

If you can't post the article you need to be careful as statements like this are the same tactic as Russian bots.

https://www.newscientist.com/articl...are-there-two-strains-and-is-one-more-deadly/
I found on quick search. There are also articles saying Spain has a different strain from original. Oh wait let me find that too...

https://en.as.com/en/2020/03/17/football/1584450902_468482.html
So basically yeah it's mutating... (Citation see above)