COVID-19 Pandemic (Coronavirus)

Reece

Reece

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It’s so depressing I don’t even wanna read about it. And we have the absolute WORST President in US history in office. Not Clinton. Not Obama. Not even Bush. But Donald fukking Trump. The guy from the reality tv show. In the middle of a global pandemic that could potentially kill millions. This is karma for people thinking shyt was fun and games to vote him in. I’m not trying to get daps either. I’m legit scared. We are sooooo fukked if we don’t figure this out. Like soooooo fukked.
 
Stone Cold

Stone Cold

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That analysis is flawed
they make structural mistakes in analyzing outbreak response. They ignore standard Contact Tracing [2] allowing isolation of infected prior to symptoms. They also ignore door-to-door monitoring to identify cases with symptoms [3]. Their conclusions that there will be resurgent outbreaks are wrong. After a few weeks of lockdown almost all infectious people are identified and their contacts are isolated prior to symptoms and cannot infect others [4]. The outbreak can be stopped completely with no resurgence as in China, where new cases were down to one yesterday, after excluding imported international travelers that are quarantined.

Their assumptions are equivalent to ergodicity, as they consider new infections to be a function of infected fraction and immunity, and not influenced by where in the trajectory of the outbreak they are, distinguishing going up from going down.

They also don't specify whether achieving less than one case (extinction of the virus) is possible in their model. The actual minimal number for resurgence is larger than 1 because (1) a significant percentage of those in close contact with confirmed cases are not infected, indeed only 5% of close contacts of infected individuals traced in China subsequently tested positive [2], and (2) small outbreaks can be stopped by contact tracing, which is enhanced by the availability of testing [5]. The availability of testing is also not included in their analysis. These interventions imply the exponential growth they report after relaxing restrictions would require a significant number of initial cases.

Since lockdowns result in exponentially decreasing numbers of cases, a comparatively short amount of time can be sufficient to achieve pathogen extinction, after which relaxing restrictions can be done without resurgence. Since the exponential decay is highly sensitive to the interventions made by both government and social action, simulating their effects is less helpful than the advice to ``go all out'' and refine the effort over time with improved tracing, testing, and other protocols.

Finally, the use of geographic boundaries and travel restrictions allows for effective and comparatively low cost imposition and relaxation of interventions. Such a multiscale approach accelerates response efforts, reduces social impacts, allows for relaxing restrictions in areas earlier that are less affected, enables unifected areas to assist in response in the ares that are infected, and is a much more practical and effective way to stop otherwise devastating outbreaks [6]. If actions had been taken earlier, successful local lockdowns, as performed in China in Hubei province, would have been possible instead of national lockdowns.
Click to expand...
https://necsi.edu/review-of-ferguson-et-al-impact-of-non-pharmaceutical-interventions
Review of Ferguson et al "Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions..." — New England Complex Systems Institute
 
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