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The clustering of complications and death from Covid-19 among the elderly and chronically ill, but not children (there have been only very rare deaths in childr
by scout4 7y ago
The clustering of complications and death from Covid-19 among the elderly and chronically ill, but not children (there have been only very rare deaths in children), suggests that we could achieve the crucial goals of social distancing — saving lives and not overwhelming our medical system — by preferentially protecting the medically frail and those over age 60, and in particular those over 70 and 80, from exposure.
Finally, some sanity.
The over 70 and chronically ill should be quarantined and provided with hydroxychloroquine + azithromycin, and the rest should "social distance" those at risk, but otherwise go about their business. That way the virus spreads quickly among the less at risk, they suffer no or minor symptoms, and develop herd immunity.
- vinni2 7y ago> That way the virus spreads quickly among the less at risk, they suffer no or minor symptoms, and develop herd immunity. It sounds wonderful if it works but unfortunately hard to enforce. And not to mention virus could mutate causing second outbreak.
- slowmovintarget 7y agoExcept that children can spread it faster among caretakers that have contact with the elderly. Many of those caretakers, like people my age, either have young children (like me), or are in contact with people who have young children. It also turns out that certain classes of drugs can drop the otherwise statistically less at risk squarely into the grave risk category without their knowing it. (High BP meds, NSAIDS, others we perhaps don't yet know about). Going for the "maybe it isn't that big of a deal" approach seems like a bad idea to me.
- hcurtiss 7y agoThat has to be weighed against the impacts of cratering the economy, which we know to be a big deal.