4 ms·
Lockdowns will only work long term if they are used to reduce the level of infection to a level that can be controlled by other means (testing, tracking, quaran
by rhino369 6y ago
Lockdowns will only work long term if they are used to reduce the level of infection to a level that can be controlled by other means (testing, tracking, quarantine, and social distancing).
US and European public health agencies don't seem up to that task. You could lockdown until US numbers are literally 0 and we'd just grow exponentially again after we got the first case from incoming visitor.
And I don't think a 2 month stringent lockdown would be enough to totally eliminate the virus once its in every county in all 50 states. There aren't enough federal agents in the world to weld rural Kentuckians into their houses like was done in Wuhan.
Other than Wuhan, have lockdowns ever really stopped--over the long run--a large outbreak?
- chii 6y agobecause you specified large - that's a self defeating condition. You lock down before it gets large - otherwise, being large means you can no longer trace/track and quarantine. Australia had an outbreak in melbourne that came from a leak in hotel quarantine, and sydney had a similar leak. There was large scale lockdown in melb (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_Australia#cite_ref-11 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_Australia...) which lasted 4 months - it was brutal for everyone, but it kept the outbreak from spreading from around 7000 cases. You can make similar observations for sydney. Therefore, the question of whether lockdowns work for large outbreaks has the implied assumption that you only lockdown after the outbreak is large, and thus is a loaded question. The lockdown needs to look like an overreaction after the fact, or it would not have helped.