I feel really torn about this. The intuitive way of managing this is to try all possible containment methods as long as possible. The benefits of this is that

I feel really torn about this. The intuitive way of managing this is to try all possible containment methods as long as possible. The benefits of this is that it will give maximum chance for containment, and failing that, maximum time for therapies/vaccines to emerge. What are the chances of this? Containment thus far has already failed. The asymptomatic period make this hard to contain, and even in China with drastic measures new infections are occurring. Even if this worked, it would only take one area not doing this effectively to allow reinfection of these other areas once measures are lifted. The other issue is that an effective vaccine is not going to appear for at least a year. Other repurpose therapies are being trialed, and initial results will be released this month. I’m not aware of any other completely new therapies which may change outcomes. So, it appears the benefit is limited. The main risk of this approach is that containment is initially successful, but then fails in Autumn (fall), leading to a peak in the winter when the health system is already under a large amount of stress. This would be a disaster, and may well be what happens to other countries who try this. So, the UK approach of making occur in summer may make sense for the UK. How appropriate this course of will obviously depend on level of seasonal variability in health care needs. Therefore countries like Indonesia or Singapore will do well to stick to containment initially, as they dont risk a peak occurring in winter.