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My thinking stems from the conclusion that at this point there is no containing this virus, because this whole thing started with a single infection and transmi
by DesiLurker 7y ago
My thinking stems from the conclusion that at this point there is no containing this virus, because this whole thing started with a single infection and transmission is asymptomatic so unless we test all humans & quarantine till we get vaccine this going to spread.
If you accept that premise, then the only solution is to manage hospital capacity. So I propose that we use hospital overload as a high watermark for quarantining the local communities. so basically you initiate quarantine when hospitals are say at 50% of their capacity (because they will peak after quarantine begin). Wait & once they fall below say 10% release the quarantine. Repeat the process until you get herd immunity or vaccine.
- yiyus 7y agoYour numbers are totally unrealistic. Assuming the growth rate is similar as in Europe (and afaik there is no reason to think it is any different), if you start the quarantine with hospitals at 50%, they will be at 100% capacity in 3 days, and the cases that require hospitalization will keep doubling every 3 days for at least 2-3 weeks. A quarantine won't magically reduce it to 10%.
- DesiLurker 7y agothats a valid criticism, but I didn't mean the thresholds as prescriptive. they would depend upon a few things but actual values can be calculated based on infection rate & also be learnt from past cycles after you have gone through it once. the idea is that quarantine will slow down R0 enough to give hospitals a breather & work through the cases. also it will buy enough time to manufacture more ventilators. Lastly once we go through a couple of these on-off cycles it will help establish that the virus is a know quantity to the larger economy so we can plan around this. which is way better than current 'OMG we are headed for depression' style panic.