4 ms·

Even among identified cases, we did not put even a small dent in the rate of new daily cases until the very end of 2020: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavir

by _hypx 4y ago

Even among identified cases, we did not put even a small dent in the rate of new daily cases until the very end of 2020: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/worldwide-graphs/#daily-cases https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/worldwide-graphs/#... Since that was about the time we had vaccines available, that suggests that none of our isolation strategies were capable of stopping the outbreak. It could only have slowed it down.

epgui 4y ago
It's so tiring engaging with the public about this. No. Literally the only indicator you need to look at is R_t, and R_t was less than 1.0 at various times in various places throughout all of 2020. All you need to do to make an infectious disease go away is keep R_t below 1.0 for long enough (this depends on the lifecycle of the pathogen, but in this case we're talking weeks).
- _hypx 4y ago
  But it simply didn't happen. At all in fact, once you look at the whole world. And all of this is based on reported data. We never got a clear picture of what unknown transmission looked like. If I had to guess, it was many-fold worse.
- jsnell 4y ago
  You need to keep it low enough, for long enough, with no reservoir. It's the last part that's the problem. You'd either need to prevent all travel for years, or arrange for everywhere in the world to take action at the same time. The latter is basically impossible.
- kyrra 4y ago
  I'm sorry, but no. Yes, this might work at an academic level, but dealing with the politics of the world and human nature, this thing that you ask cannot happen given the diversity of the politics and cultures of the world. It's the same reason a carbon tax type system will never work, because there will be some subset of our world that would want to take advantage of a situation for their own financial gain, even if it hurts everyone else in the long run.

by _hypx 4y ago

epgui 4y ago

It's so tiring engaging with the public about this. No. Literally the only indicator you need to look at is R_t, and R_t was less than 1.0 at various times in various places throughout all of 2020. All you need to do to make an infectious disease go away is keep R_t below 1.0 for long enough (this depends on the lifecycle of the pathogen, but in this case we're talking weeks).

_hypx 4y ago
But it simply didn't happen. At all in fact, once you look at the whole world. And all of this is based on reported data. We never got a clear picture of what unknown transmission looked like. If I had to guess, it was many-fold worse.
jsnell 4y ago
You need to keep it low enough, for long enough, with no reservoir. It's the last part that's the problem. You'd either need to prevent all travel for years, or arrange for everywhere in the world to take action at the same time. The latter is basically impossible.
kyrra 4y ago
I'm sorry, but no. Yes, this might work at an academic level, but dealing with the politics of the world and human nature, this thing that you ask cannot happen given the diversity of the politics and cultures of the world. It's the same reason a carbon tax type system will never work, because there will be some subset of our world that would want to take advantage of a situation for their own financial gain, even if it hurts everyone else in the long run.