5 ms·
The U.S. has about 600k cases. One order of magnitude more is 6M cases. That's still very far from broadly spreading. It's worrying about the viability of the h
by JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
The U.S. has about 600k cases. One order of magnitude more is 6M cases. That's still very far from broadly spreading. It's worrying about the viability of the herd immunity theory (too few people had it), and opening the country soon (a few weeks of exponential case increases would overload hospital capacity, even after stemming the case growth through sheltering-- putting us back to square one). It feels, 1-2 months into this, we have no good options.
- fyfy18 7y agoAt least in Europe the results of quarantine are starting to show results, Italy, Spain and Germany and all seeing a drop in new daily cases and deaths. Spain will allow factories and businesses that can't work remotely to reopen today, although there are concerns it may be too early. Other European countries that imposed quarantine 'ahead of the curve' are not facing any issues in terms of hospital capacity.
- joe_the_user 7y agoThat still doesn't explain how opening businesses can avoid infecting many more people. Now certainly but even when infection rates get considerably lower. A scan of recent news seems to indicate Spain doesn't have anything like a testing program in place. A look at Italy, Spain, France and Germany seems to indicate the epidemic has plateaued, not stopped and it's plateaued at a fairly high level.
- sandworm101 7y agoI'm in BC, Canada. People are talking about our lockdown going too well. The hospitals are not overwealmed like those in New York. Infections are under control, mainly contained to care homes. But you don't get to herd immunity if the virus does not spread. Vaccines are a year or more away. Holding the lockdown that long would devastate a generation. The government isn't saying it but people are deciding to head out on their own. Outside of urban centers, this Easter weekend looked almost normal. I was at the grocery store today. Maybe 1 in 10 people had some form of mask. Tomorrow I go to work, where we aren't using masks either. We never did. I have some homemade masks but have never felt the need. There is virus in our area but it just isn't spreading at nearly the predicted rate given our relaxed "lockdown".
- JMTQp8lwXL 7y agoYou can't enter my grocery store without a face covering. I didn't see anyone strictly enforcing it, but there was a >80% compliance rate, based off what I saw.
- benibela 7y agoIn Germany you cannot enter most groceries stores without a shopping cart. It did not used to be that way, they made shopping carts mandatory to stop covid.
- twomoretime 7y agoYou know if we start to open/close in cycles in theory it's possible that a manageable equilibrium of cases can be achieved while we work out a prophylactic or cure. Capacity everywhere for supplies is ramping up and I imagine once that happens masks will be commonplace and perhaps the stigma around masks will die once a couple hundred thousand Americans do.
- tly_alex 7y ago6M cases are still far from broadly spreading, am I reading this right?
- Kaiyou 7y agoAt what percentage would you speak of broadly? 6M cases are 1.5%.
- SAI_Peregrinus 7y agoAnd given the estimated R0 being >5 we need over 80% infection/vaccination rate (256 million in the US) to reach herd immunity.