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The market hasn't yet priced in an important reality: we have no way to stop the spread at the moment. Best that can be done are quarantines, but they're crush

The market hasn't yet priced in an important reality: we have no way to stop the spread at the moment. Best that can be done are quarantines, but they're crushing the economy. Many outlets are reporting that a vaccine is at least a year out. So all we can do is slow this down and stagger cases. The Harvard epidemiologist who projected 40-70% of the world's adult population ultimately contracting covid was probably right. At some point, governments will likely realize that they need to send younger segments of the population back to work (a la the UK), respecting the medical system's capacity, or risk triggering a depression. The economy was already systemically vulnerable for a number of reasons and this situation threatens to push it over the edge. It's possible the market has not yet fully priced in extended quarantines or the likelihood of much of China and most other important economies experiencing a significant disease burden. The paradox is that the quarantines have slowed down the progression but are not an economically sustainable tool to fight this, so the numbers being reported are artificially deflated. On the other side, you have the medical system's limited capacity. One way or the other, we'll have to face the music on this.

nostromo 7y ago
> they need to send younger segments of the population back to work This is the only sensible approach moving forward. We need to quarantine the very old and very ill and provide them with financial assistance. Quarantining everyone is an overreaction and unsustainable. When the not-very-old and healthy have built up antibodies and resistance, we'll have heard immunity and the very old or ill can return to normalcy.
- Brakenshire 7y ago
  Mortality rates for young people are not negligible, and we don’t know either the long term health impacts of a severe episode of the virus or even whether catching the virus gives immunity.
  - thinkingemote 7y ago
    Its very likely and we kinda know that catching the virus gives short term immunity. Longer term is unknown.
  - empath75 7y ago
    for young people, it's less deadly than the flu.
    - 0xffff2 7y ago
      Citation needed. Everything I've read says that it's significantly more deadly than the flu for all ages and that more importantly the error bars on any mortality number are absolutely huge.
- beamatronic 7y ago
  This is close to the UK approach I heard about
  - thinkingemote 7y ago
    The UK "just do nothing, we want herd immunity" is not their approach and is actually a bit fake. However protecting the most at risk groups is part of their plan. The plan is to flatten the curve so that hospitals can cope. For example today, all schools have shut.
    - sjg007 7y ago
      The latest news from Italy and France is that more young people are impacted then expected and get critically ill.
- joe_the_user 7y ago
  This a highly dangerous view. Everyone is at risk of serious illness from this virus. The old are less likely to survive a serious illness but many young people get very ill. When many young people get very ill and overwhelm the health care system, those young people die also. People believing this approach is sustainable and acting on it are killing people and will not solve the problem.
Spartan-S63 7y ago
Hopefully this reality will also push many companies to decentralize their workforce as much as possible (i.e. remote work) where possible. It has extra benefits such as resilience to crises like these but it'll also help them meet the talent where it's at in the future.
jhayward 7y ago
> we have no way to stop the spread at the moment. Sure we do, universal, rapid result testing with isolation and contact tracing of positives. It works fine and is minimally invasive, and preserves the economy. First you get the exponential growth down with a shutdown, then only allow those who are tested to resume activity. If we had done it at the start we wouldn't have ever had exponential growth to begin with.
- toufka 7y ago
  Except that is not happening - and test kits are not around or in supply. At some point you push past what's possible to manage, and I think we're there at this point. It is technically reasonable to test everyone once a day, and quarantine the positives - but it cannot literally happen here in the next few weeks. The vice president just said, "Do not get a test if you don't have symptoms - to preserve them for the sickest people."
  - lambertsimnel 7y ago
    > It is technically reasonable to test everyone once a day, and quarantine the positives - but it cannot literally happen here in the next few weeks. The vice president just said, "Do not get a test if you don't have symptoms - to preserve them for the sickest people." I'm not sure we can rely on that. It sounds like tests on asymptomatic carriers aren't reliable. "The tests looks for the viral RNA by RT-PCR. This is a test based on viral RNA from swabs of nose and throat. Corona-symptoms appear due to viral replication destroying cells which we cough or snees/snot out." https://twitter.com/_Adora_Belle_/status/1237704056489082880 https://twitter.com/_Adora_Belle_/status/1237704056489082880
    - jhayward 7y ago
      If you have enough viral load to be infectious RT-PCR on nasal swabs will definitely find it. PCR is enormously sensitive.
- realtalk_sp 7y ago
  When you really dig into what you wrote, my feeling is you're not describing a solution that's feasible in large countries, short of (very) authoritarian enforcement. Keep in mind, for example, that the US is not technically under quarantine at the moment. And there are plenty of examples of people across the country recklessly defying the advisories. The virus is especially virulent and controlling it in the way you describe requires stamping it out totally with extreme measures. We know that if even one case remains in the general population, it's just a matter of time before we're once again under pandemic threat.
VBprogrammer 7y ago
I'm not an expert by any means but here is what I've picked up. We essentially have 3 ways out of this: - It becomes endemic, enough people have had it that it's no longer a huge problem; so long as you ignore the hundreds of thousands who died on the way there. - We develop and test a vaccine. Great except pressing pause on the entire world for a year or more is a challenge. - We somehow manage to contain the spread and eliminate it. Some counties seem to have had some success with this technique but we need all countries to do it, at massive economic and social cost. We don't seem to be holding a particularly attractive hand at the moment.
- SkyBelow 7y ago
  There is an option 2b. We develop a vaccine and roll it out without as much testing, at least to some people. It has higher risks of something being wrong with the vaccine, but at the same time our existing process only tests the vaccine for a relatively short period of time relative to human lifespan, and one can say it is already a risky move. In this case the risk of reducing testing and starting to roll out the vaccine sooner may be justified.
  - VBprogrammer 7y ago
    True, but to be honest I think a year is probably pushing the boundaries of what is possible. We then need a massive immunisation project to get 60% or more of all of the world's populations to a good level of immunity. Even rushing the testing phase doesn't give me much hope that that will be in place by this time next year. I guess there is a 2.c where we find an existing drug which is mass manufactured and, at least, makes the worst cases more easily managed.
smileysteve 7y ago
> At some point, governments will likely realize that they need to send younger segments of the population back to work A problem being that, 60%-100% of your teams end up getting it and being incapable of work for 2 weeks, in staggered cases. So cutting the workforce in age, then in 60% segments of 2 week periods; of which 1-8% might die. A thought is that a few changes are likely to come from this; 1. We'll be more remote 2. We'll have smaller teams 3. No more all hands meetings or open offices

nostromo 7y ago

> they need to send younger segments of the population back to work This is the only sensible approach moving forward. We need to quarantine the very old and very ill and provide them with financial assistance. Quarantining everyone is an overreaction and unsustainable. When the not-very-old and healthy have built up antibodies and resistance, we'll have heard immunity and the very old or ill can return to normalcy.

Brakenshire 7y ago
Mortality rates for young people are not negligible, and we don’t know either the long term health impacts of a severe episode of the virus or even whether catching the virus gives immunity.
- thinkingemote 7y ago
  Its very likely and we kinda know that catching the virus gives short term immunity. Longer term is unknown.
- empath75 7y ago
  for young people, it's less deadly than the flu.
  - 0xffff2 7y ago
    Citation needed. Everything I've read says that it's significantly more deadly than the flu for all ages and that more importantly the error bars on any mortality number are absolutely huge.
beamatronic 7y ago
This is close to the UK approach I heard about
- thinkingemote 7y ago
  The UK "just do nothing, we want herd immunity" is not their approach and is actually a bit fake. However protecting the most at risk groups is part of their plan. The plan is to flatten the curve so that hospitals can cope. For example today, all schools have shut.
  - sjg007 7y ago
    The latest news from Italy and France is that more young people are impacted then expected and get critically ill.
joe_the_user 7y ago
This a highly dangerous view. Everyone is at risk of serious illness from this virus. The old are less likely to survive a serious illness but many young people get very ill. When many young people get very ill and overwhelm the health care system, those young people die also. People believing this approach is sustainable and acting on it are killing people and will not solve the problem.

Spartan-S63 7y ago

Hopefully this reality will also push many companies to decentralize their workforce as much as possible (i.e. remote work) where possible. It has extra benefits such as resilience to crises like these but it'll also help them meet the talent where it's at in the future.

jhayward 7y ago

> we have no way to stop the spread at the moment. Sure we do, universal, rapid result testing with isolation and contact tracing of positives. It works fine and is minimally invasive, and preserves the economy. First you get the exponential growth down with a shutdown, then only allow those who are tested to resume activity. If we had done it at the start we wouldn't have ever had exponential growth to begin with.

toufka 7y ago
Except that is not happening - and test kits are not around or in supply. At some point you push past what's possible to manage, and I think we're there at this point. It is technically reasonable to test everyone once a day, and quarantine the positives - but it cannot literally happen here in the next few weeks. The vice president just said, "Do not get a test if you don't have symptoms - to preserve them for the sickest people."
- lambertsimnel 7y ago
  > It is technically reasonable to test everyone once a day, and quarantine the positives - but it cannot literally happen here in the next few weeks. The vice president just said, "Do not get a test if you don't have symptoms - to preserve them for the sickest people." I'm not sure we can rely on that. It sounds like tests on asymptomatic carriers aren't reliable. "The tests looks for the viral RNA by RT-PCR. This is a test based on viral RNA from swabs of nose and throat. Corona-symptoms appear due to viral replication destroying cells which we cough or snees/snot out." https://twitter.com/_Adora_Belle_/status/1237704056489082880 https://twitter.com/_Adora_Belle_/status/1237704056489082880
  - jhayward 7y ago
    If you have enough viral load to be infectious RT-PCR on nasal swabs will definitely find it. PCR is enormously sensitive.
realtalk_sp 7y ago
When you really dig into what you wrote, my feeling is you're not describing a solution that's feasible in large countries, short of (very) authoritarian enforcement. Keep in mind, for example, that the US is not technically under quarantine at the moment. And there are plenty of examples of people across the country recklessly defying the advisories. The virus is especially virulent and controlling it in the way you describe requires stamping it out totally with extreme measures. We know that if even one case remains in the general population, it's just a matter of time before we're once again under pandemic threat.

VBprogrammer 7y ago

I'm not an expert by any means but here is what I've picked up. We essentially have 3 ways out of this: - It becomes endemic, enough people have had it that it's no longer a huge problem; so long as you ignore the hundreds of thousands who died on the way there. - We develop and test a vaccine. Great except pressing pause on the entire world for a year or more is a challenge. - We somehow manage to contain the spread and eliminate it. Some counties seem to have had some success with this technique but we need all countries to do it, at massive economic and social cost. We don't seem to be holding a particularly attractive hand at the moment.

SkyBelow 7y ago
There is an option 2b. We develop a vaccine and roll it out without as much testing, at least to some people. It has higher risks of something being wrong with the vaccine, but at the same time our existing process only tests the vaccine for a relatively short period of time relative to human lifespan, and one can say it is already a risky move. In this case the risk of reducing testing and starting to roll out the vaccine sooner may be justified.
- VBprogrammer 7y ago
  True, but to be honest I think a year is probably pushing the boundaries of what is possible. We then need a massive immunisation project to get 60% or more of all of the world's populations to a good level of immunity. Even rushing the testing phase doesn't give me much hope that that will be in place by this time next year. I guess there is a 2.c where we find an existing drug which is mass manufactured and, at least, makes the worst cases more easily managed.

smileysteve 7y ago

> At some point, governments will likely realize that they need to send younger segments of the population back to work A problem being that, 60%-100% of your teams end up getting it and being incapable of work for 2 weeks, in staggered cases. So cutting the workforce in age, then in 60% segments of 2 week periods; of which 1-8% might die. A thought is that a few changes are likely to come from this; 1. We'll be more remote 2. We'll have smaller teams 3. No more all hands meetings or open offices