11 ms·
> In short: It's flattening the curve, not shrinking the area under the curve. The better we do it, the longer it will take. That's too narrow of a view -- it
by kardos 7y ago
> In short: It's flattening the curve, not shrinking the area under the curve. The better we do it, the longer it will take.
That's too narrow of a view -- it assumes that we can't raise hospital capacity, that supplies shortages are permanent, that treatments won't be developed, that vaccines are vapourware. The point of flattening the curve is to give enough time for those things to be developed such that we can get hospitalization/death rates down and manage a higher rate of infections.
- mirimir 7y agoI agree that effective medicines and/or vaccines would shrink the area aka total percentage of the population that eventually become infected. Although both remain unknowns, let's assume one or two years. Neither adequate supplies nor hospital capacity would shrink the area. But they would increase the maximum tolerable infection rate. That is, the infection rate that wouldn't overwhelm resources, and increase the death rate. Given all that, it seems pretty clear that disruptions will last at least a year or two. Perhaps we could move everyone at risk into isolation camps, and let everyone else get infected and recover, hopefully with some lasting immunity. And then perhaps use antiserum from them to help protect the isolated at-risk populations. However, said isolated at-risk populations would likely be at huge risk of mass die-offs, unless there was substantial compartmentalization. Maybe tent cities?