3 ms·

I don't disagree with the flattening the curve bit, but I do wonder - my understanding is that a vaccine is at minimum a year out. Would we need to keep doing t

by xur17 7y ago

I don't disagree with the flattening the curve bit, but I do wonder - my understanding is that a vaccine is at minimum a year out. Would we need to keep doing this for that entire time period, or are there other factors at play here?

Gibbon1 7y ago
I think that there is a rough relation between the infection rate and the percent of the population that gets infected. Consider raw r0 of 3.0. Each case infects three other people. But as more and more of the population gets infected and acquires immunity the infection rate drops. Say half the population is immune due to prior infection. The rate is now half r0 = 3.0 * 0.5 Left unchecked 66% of the population will get infected and then the disease dies out. Social distancing, hand washing, quarantine reduces r0. And reduces the total number that the virus can infect before is dies out. Cut r0 from 3.0 to 1.5 and the number of infected goes from 66% to 33%. In the US that would be 100 million people. And maybe a million fewer deaths. Scuttlebutt is China and Taiwan due to high early compliance have r0 down to about 0.3, which means the epidemic is in a state of exponential crash.
pfranz 7y ago
There are shortages in the supply chain; hand sanitizer, masks, and tests for coronavirus in addition to overwhelming hospitals by sick people. If there aren't open beds or staff (ideally who aren't overworked), people who otherwise would get medical attention will die. If a vaccine wasn't even in the picture flattening the curve would help with these things.
- xur17 7y ago
  That's a good point. Also, my understanding is that antiviral medications might be an option in a "few" months.
  - bluGill 7y ago
    There are a lot of things in the future. Antivirals show promise of working in a few months - but we don't actually know they will work (or for that matter that the virus won't evolve a new unique resistance to them). It will take time to figure out what works best for treatment.

by xur17 7y ago

Gibbon1 7y ago

I think that there is a rough relation between the infection rate and the percent of the population that gets infected. Consider raw r0 of 3.0. Each case infects three other people. But as more and more of the population gets infected and acquires immunity the infection rate drops. Say half the population is immune due to prior infection. The rate is now half r0 = 3.0 * 0.5 Left unchecked 66% of the population will get infected and then the disease dies out. Social distancing, hand washing, quarantine reduces r0. And reduces the total number that the virus can infect before is dies out. Cut r0 from 3.0 to 1.5 and the number of infected goes from 66% to 33%. In the US that would be 100 million people. And maybe a million fewer deaths. Scuttlebutt is China and Taiwan due to high early compliance have r0 down to about 0.3, which means the epidemic is in a state of exponential crash.

pfranz 7y ago

There are shortages in the supply chain; hand sanitizer, masks, and tests for coronavirus in addition to overwhelming hospitals by sick people. If there aren't open beds or staff (ideally who aren't overworked), people who otherwise would get medical attention will die. If a vaccine wasn't even in the picture flattening the curve would help with these things.

xur17 7y ago
That's a good point. Also, my understanding is that antiviral medications might be an option in a "few" months.
- bluGill 7y ago
  There are a lot of things in the future. Antivirals show promise of working in a few months - but we don't actually know they will work (or for that matter that the virus won't evolve a new unique resistance to them). It will take time to figure out what works best for treatment.