Posted on 03/20/2020 1:42:51 PM PDT by yoe
Humblegunner must think “The Atlantic” is a blog.
Even if excerpted, you can post up to 300 words, which is what I work to do when only an excerpt is allowed. Not sure if this applies to the Atlantic, and here is the gist of it in 313 words:
If we do nothing and just let the virus run its course, the team predicts, we could see three times as many deaths as we see from cardiovascular disease each year. Further, it estimated that infections would peak in mid-June. We could expect to see about 55,000 deaths, in just one day...
But buried in the Imperial College report is reason for optimism. The analysis finds that in the do-nothing scenario, many people die and die quickly. With serious mitigation, though, many of the measures we’re taking now slow things down. By the summer, the report calculates, the number of people who become sick will eventually reduce to a trickle.
On this path, though, the real horror show will begin in the fall and crush us next winter, when COVID-19 comes back with a vengeance. This is what happened with the flu in 1918. The spring was bad. Over the summer, the numbers of sick dwindled and created a false sense of security. Then, all hell broke loose. In late 1918, tens of millions of people died. Because of this, some are now declaring that we might be on lockdown for the next 18 months..
We can create a third path...We could develop tests that are fast, reliable, and ubiquitous. If we screen everyone, and do so regularly, we can let most people return to a more normal life. We can reopen schools and places where people gather.
We can build health-care facilities that do rapid screening and care for people who are infected, apart from those who are not.
We will need to build ventilators and add hospital beds. We will need to train and redistribute physicians, nurses, and respiratory therapists to where they are most needed. We will need to focus our factories on turning out the protective equipment And, most importantly, we need to pour vast sums..into developing a vaccine...https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/how-we-beat-coronavirus/608389/
Tastes kinda rubbery
The funny thing about universal testing is that it can also give a false sense of security and cause even wider spread - what says someone who tested negative didn’t contract it 5 minutes after having the swab/sample taken for analysis?
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