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I'm wondering if China is shooting itself in the foot by being on lockdown because they may just be delaying the inevitable now that it's pandemic and at risk o
by malandrew 7y ago
I'm wondering if China is shooting itself in the foot by being on lockdown because they may just be delaying the inevitable now that it's pandemic and at risk of becoming endemic.
If we assume this will become endemic and a vaccine is a ways off, it would seem like the best approach is to flatten the curve just under the healthcare system capacity and get it to "pass through" most of society quickly (i.e. everyone who is at lower risk gets infected and quarantines until viral shedding stops).
Doing this would allow us to return the economy back to normal as quickly as possible and prevent all the fallout from an indefinitely stopped economy. Once most people have had it, we'll essentially end up in a state of herd immunity and it becomes statistically less likely than other health concerns at-risk populations had before COVID-19 was even a thing.
Meanwhile China, being on lockdown the entire time is still susceptible to having it become a pandemic within their own population as soon as they lift the lockdown and try to return to normal because they citizens haven't had the opportunity to develop antibodies as broadly.
- peterwoerner 7y agoThat seems to be what England is planning on doing. https://twitter.com/wtgowers/status/1238395750360461312 https://twitter.com/wtgowers/status/1238395750360461312
- ceejayoz 7y agoThat sounds like a fascinatingly terrifying balancing act.
- malandrew 7y agoEven without it, we're doing a terrifying balancing act with the economy. We want a V-shaped recovery and the best way to achieve that is the swiftest resolution to pandemic. A U-shaped recovery would be bad for a lot of people, especially if prolonged. Last thing we want is an L-shaped market with no real recovery.
- malandrew 7y agoGreat find. Going to read up more on Patrick Vallance's plan. This was an interesting point from a Guardian article where he defends the plan: “If you suppress something very, very hard, when you release those measures it bounces back and it bounces back at the wrong time,” he said. The government is concerned that if not enough people catch the virus now, it will re-emerge in the winter, when the NHS is already overstretched. [0] [0] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/13/coronavirus-science-chief-defends-uk-measures-criticism-herd-immunity https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/13/coronavirus-sc...
- DanBC 7y agoBut see this thread for some discussion of the risks of the strategy: https://twitter.com/iandonald_psych/status/1238518371651649538?s=20 https://twitter.com/iandonald_psych/status/12385183716516495...
- christoph 7y agoThanks for posting this. I was initially very negative about the UK strategy yesterday, but on reflection today I think they may have a very sensible long term approach to the situation, although highly risky to balance correctly.
- Scarblac 7y agoBut the healthcare system is overwhelmed almost immediately. Wouldn't it take both these hard measures and a lot of time just to get it in reach of healthcare capacity?