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This assumes that "economic activity will restart". Humans won't participate in dangerous activities. They may test the waters e.g. by ggoing to gyms, but as so

This assumes that "economic activity will restart". Humans won't participate in dangerous activities. They may test the waters e.g. by ggoing to gyms, but as soon as a single case is found they 'll be scared back into their homes. It will happen even more so as the disease spreads and people learn about the death of someone they know. This will happen regardless of how much testing. If you 're doing contact tracing right, you should need to test very few people per million every day. If you need to do a lot of testing, you ve probably already lost and will be forced to shutdown again. The solution is probably the second: antivirals. OTOH i wonder what's the effectiveness of optical-based methods to detect viral particles: https://phys.org/news/2006-11-laser-nanotechnology-rapidly-viruses.html https://phys.org/news/2006-11-laser-nanotechnology-rapidly-v...

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
If humans were so extremely risk averse that a single case is unacceptable, wouldn't we have naturally isolated ourselves without requiring lockdown orders?
- js8 6y ago
  No, because while many humans are risk averse, we also live in certain cultural circumstances that prevent us to make that decision unilaterally. For example, I cannot just tell my boss, I am working from home, even though in my case there is no problem. Even if he allows, the company policy might not. (Although I am lucky I live in a sane country and we have that policy now.) Or in Czechia, now everyone wears a mask (since it is mandatory). It became a norm in like 2 days, one day almost nobody had them (and people felt that wearing them makes you look sick), the next day they became mandatory in public transport, and the day after everybody had them. There are other examples like that, where the peer pressure plays an important role (in preventing humans to make rational decisions).
- buboard 6y ago
  they did not know how dangerous it is. i think attitudes will change everywhere

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago

If humans were so extremely risk averse that a single case is unacceptable, wouldn't we have naturally isolated ourselves without requiring lockdown orders?

js8 6y ago
No, because while many humans are risk averse, we also live in certain cultural circumstances that prevent us to make that decision unilaterally. For example, I cannot just tell my boss, I am working from home, even though in my case there is no problem. Even if he allows, the company policy might not. (Although I am lucky I live in a sane country and we have that policy now.) Or in Czechia, now everyone wears a mask (since it is mandatory). It became a norm in like 2 days, one day almost nobody had them (and people felt that wearing them makes you look sick), the next day they became mandatory in public transport, and the day after everybody had them. There are other examples like that, where the peer pressure plays an important role (in preventing humans to make rational decisions).
buboard 6y ago
they did not know how dangerous it is. i think attitudes will change everywhere