4 ms·

The answer seems so obvious. Do a hard, air tight quarantine of people of advanced age. People who are borderline or sick are told to stay inside. Encourage the

by 2008guy 7y ago

The answer seems so obvious. Do a hard, air tight quarantine of people of advanced age. People who are borderline or sick are told to stay inside. Encourage the rest of society to go about business as usual. Provide government support for all of it. Some people will die but probably less than if we have to do this over and over again without ever gaining herd immunity. And few enough to massively ease the burden on hospitals. And it’s the best way to avoid Great Depression 2020.

gyulai 7y ago
...keep in mind, that it may be the case that we're being lied to when we're told that young and healthy people have nothing to fear. The following article seems to suggest otherwise: https://www.propublica.org/article/a-medical-worker-describes--terrifying-lung-failure-from-covid19-even-in-his-young-patients https://www.propublica.org/article/a-medical-worker-describe...
- gyulai 7y ago
  Another data point: The following source gives additional detail on the kind of thing that is meant by "preexisting condition" when they say "people without preexisting conditions have nothing to fear". One of them is high blood pressure. Who doesn't have high blood pressure, these days. https://www.cebm.net/global-covid-19-case-fatality-rates/ https://www.cebm.net/global-covid-19-case-fatality-rates/
- marknutter 7y ago
  As frightening as they are, these appear to be outlier cases.
alkonaut 7y ago
Those most at risk are those requiring care. An 80+ person with some illness with typical assistance at home might meet 20+ working age people in a week. That can probably be scaled down in the name of caution to say 5, but it's unlikely to be the same 5 every week because of staff turnover, illness. It's the same whether you receive care at home or in an assisted living facility. Even without such care, a lot of these people regularly need hospital care for things that aren't covid. Many have regular scheduled visits to doctors for blood pressure medication tweaks and similar. You could isolate the healthy 70 year olds quite well, but not the sick 80 year olds.
- 2008guy 7y ago
  But prove that this matters. How many people are in that group? Is it not possible to quarantine the workers?
  - alkonaut 7y ago
    Prove that what matters? That they meet tons of working age people? As you say you can expand the circle of isolation. All the at-risk patients (Say people over 65 and all adults with preexisting conditions). Then you isolate those people that they have to interact with. For example all staff at all nursing homes where any such person lives. But you quickly end up where you started. All the people who work in all the nursing homes have kids and spouses. They can't see those people when they aren't working, and then return to work with the risk group. They'd need to take their kids out of school for example (remember the point of all this is to make the rest of society work normally, schools are open). It's hard. It's probably easier then to designate people as high risk "patients" and treat them with full protective clothing, move them to special homes where care can be given with more protection and so on. But that also requires 3 things: lots of staff, lots of protective gear, lots of time to set up. I don't think there is a surplus of any of those things. It might be something to consider for the long term.
    - marknutter 7y ago
      Then test the caregivers too. That's still far less difficult than quarantining everyone.
      - alkonaut 7y ago
        When tests are cheap, available and provide results in hours, that might be possible. You’ll have thousands of people who need testing every day.

gyulai 7y ago

...keep in mind, that it may be the case that we're being lied to when we're told that young and healthy people have nothing to fear. The following article seems to suggest otherwise: https://www.propublica.org/article/a-medical-worker-describes--terrifying-lung-failure-from-covid19-even-in-his-young-patients https://www.propublica.org/article/a-medical-worker-describe...

gyulai 7y ago
Another data point: The following source gives additional detail on the kind of thing that is meant by "preexisting condition" when they say "people without preexisting conditions have nothing to fear". One of them is high blood pressure. Who doesn't have high blood pressure, these days. https://www.cebm.net/global-covid-19-case-fatality-rates/ https://www.cebm.net/global-covid-19-case-fatality-rates/
marknutter 7y ago
As frightening as they are, these appear to be outlier cases.

alkonaut 7y ago

Those most at risk are those requiring care. An 80+ person with some illness with typical assistance at home might meet 20+ working age people in a week. That can probably be scaled down in the name of caution to say 5, but it's unlikely to be the same 5 every week because of staff turnover, illness. It's the same whether you receive care at home or in an assisted living facility. Even without such care, a lot of these people regularly need hospital care for things that aren't covid. Many have regular scheduled visits to doctors for blood pressure medication tweaks and similar. You could isolate the healthy 70 year olds quite well, but not the sick 80 year olds.

2008guy 7y ago
But prove that this matters. How many people are in that group? Is it not possible to quarantine the workers?
- alkonaut 7y ago
  Prove that what matters? That they meet tons of working age people? As you say you can expand the circle of isolation. All the at-risk patients (Say people over 65 and all adults with preexisting conditions). Then you isolate those people that they have to interact with. For example all staff at all nursing homes where any such person lives. But you quickly end up where you started. All the people who work in all the nursing homes have kids and spouses. They can't see those people when they aren't working, and then return to work with the risk group. They'd need to take their kids out of school for example (remember the point of all this is to make the rest of society work normally, schools are open). It's hard. It's probably easier then to designate people as high risk "patients" and treat them with full protective clothing, move them to special homes where care can be given with more protection and so on. But that also requires 3 things: lots of staff, lots of protective gear, lots of time to set up. I don't think there is a surplus of any of those things. It might be something to consider for the long term.
  - marknutter 7y ago
    Then test the caregivers too. That's still far less difficult than quarantining everyone.
    - alkonaut 7y ago
      When tests are cheap, available and provide results in hours, that might be possible. You’ll have thousands of people who need testing every day.