It's now or never for the U.S. if it hopes to keep coronavirus from burning out of control

[htuttle]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/03/09/its-now-or-never-us-if-it-hopes-keep-coronavirus-burning-out-control/

The first phase of the coronavirus outbreak was a domestic challenge for China and a border containment one for the United States and others. Now we are in the second phase: community mitigation. Math and history must guide our next steps.

The near-term objective should be to reduce the acute, exponential growth of the outbreak, in order to reduce suffering and the strain on our health-care system. That will require significant effort, but it can work, as we have seen: Hong Kong and Singapore have achieved linear growth of covid-19 cases, staving off the terrifying exponential upward curve confronting Italy and pushing both the infection rate down and new cases out on the timeline.

(snip)

Simply put, as evidence of human-to-human transmission becomes clear in a community, officials must pull the trigger on aggressive interventions. Time matters. Two weeks of delay can mean the difference between success and failure. Public health experts learned this in 1918 when the Spanish flu killed 50 million to 100 million people around the globe. If we fail to take action, we will watch our health-care system be overwhelmed.

(snip)

Consider the actions taken in Italy. On Feb. 20, Italy reported three instances of infection and no known deaths. On Feb. 21, Italy had 20 cases and its first attributed death. Officials implemented interventions, including school closures, the following day and instituted a cordon sanitaire affecting 50,000 people. That’s aggressive, but it was too late. On Feb. 22, Italy reported 63 cases and a second death. A little more than a week later, there were 2,036 cases, with 140 patients in serious condition and 52 deaths. Today, the numbers continue to climb, with more than 9,100 cases and 460 dead, and on Monday the government expanded travel restrictions to the entire country.

(snip)

Working parents without child care have a legitimate concern, and we must find ways to help one another. But school closings can be the single most effective intervention. Amid an influenza pandemic, schools would be closed to protect the students themselves. Because children are not among the groups most vulnerable to coronavirus, schools should be closed in an effort to reduce community transmission and to protect the children’s parents and grandparents. How long? Epidemiologists suggest eight weeks might be needed to arrest this outbreak. Administrators, students, teachers and parents need to get busy figuring out how to continue the education of our children while contributing to this community-wide public health effort.

(more at link)

[LonePirate]

1. Eight weeks of school closures may be necessary? Wow! We have seen nothing like this ever.

[localroger]

2. It's too late

Realistically, we are probably past the never point. The long contagious incubation period and high R0 mean there are probably four or five times as many people who are already sick but don't know it as there are who have become symptomatic. Because they don't know they are sick we don't know who they are or who else they are infecting as I write this. Even if the most aggressive imaginable measures are taken to basically isolate everyone from everyone else, it is probably too late.

In other news, welcome to our feature presentation of Global Climate Change: The Preview.