How the Pandemic Will End

[SunSeeker]

Even a perfect response won’t end the pandemic. As long as the virus persists somewhere, there’s a chance that one infected traveler will reignite fresh sparks in countries that have already extinguished their fires. This is already happening in China, Singapore, and other Asian countries that briefly seemed to have the virus under control. Under these conditions, there are three possible endgames: one that’s very unlikely, one that’s very dangerous, and one that’s very long.

The first is that every nation manages to simultaneously bring the virus to heel, as with the original SARS in 2003. Given how widespread the coronavirus pandemic is, and how badly many countries are faring, the odds of worldwide synchronous control seem vanishingly small.

The second is that the virus does what past flu pandemics have done: It burns through the world and leaves behind enough immune survivors that it eventually struggles to find viable hosts. This “herd immunity” scenario would be quick, and thus tempting. But it would also come at a terrible cost: SARS-CoV-2 is more transmissible and fatal than the flu, and it would likely leave behind many millions of corpses and a trail of devastated health systems. The United Kingdom initially seemed to consider this herd-immunity strategy, before backtracking when models revealed the dire consequences. The U.S. now seems to be considering it too.

The third scenario is that the world plays a protracted game of whack-a-mole with the virus, stamping out outbreaks here and there until a vaccine can be produced. This is the best option, but also the longest and most complicated. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/03/how-will-coronavirus-end/608719/

[beachbumbob]

1. are we talking this season or next season? This aint ending this season if you mean as being "over"

[Igel]

2. Read the recommendations before the "backtracking"

versus what was issued to institute the "backtracking."

You'll find that the first had a list of things that should be done, and ranked them. Social distancing, for instance, was an important thing and was to be encouraged and, in some situations, imposed.

The "backtracking" was merely triggering the conditions for things like social distancing to be reranked.

The backtracking is largely, like a lot of things in the media, the result of media partial understanding, lack of attention, and then tuning back in. The hear part of the story, fill in the gaps in ways that suit them, then when another part of the original story is heard it *must* be something different. Then the change becomes the story and there's seldom the critical thinking necessary to stop being critical long enough to think, and to examine one's own assumptions and biases. (Mostly because they're screaming at everybody else to review *their* assumptions and biases. I swear, the longer I live the more reporters sound not just like the pastor of my very conservative church in the '80s but like the most judgmental of the old biddies agitating for every greater levels of hypocrisy).

[Igel]

3. "Stamping out outbreaks" seems unlikely in most cases.

Even in NYC the goal isn't to stamp it out, but to mitigate. Liberal societies will always have more trouble with that option; societies that value individuals or even subgroups over the collective will always have more trouble with that option.

"Flattening the curve" is just the " 'herd immunity' scenario" spread out.