Questions I'm wondering about tonight, about COVID-19: 1. If we give up on containment, what happens? Does it go around the world and go away, or does it become endemic? 2. If it becomes endemic, how does this change human life expectancy (in developed & developing countries)?

Mar 15, 2020 · 6:43 AM UTC

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Curious if anyone has seen expert opinions on answers to these questions.
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I think the likely range of answers to these questions should influence the decisions on how extreme the measures we should be willing to take to get containment.
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Replying to @davidbaron
You can’t give up on containment. Social distancing is also containment. recommend reading “great influenza 1918” book, relevant.
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But I think nitter.vloup.ch/XihongLin/status… makes it clear that it's not enough for containment
Xihong Lin @XihongLin
7 Mar 2020
Yes. The quarantine-at-home strategy used between 1/23-2/1 in Wuhan ie, some confirmed cases were isolated at home, helped reduce R from 3.8 to 1.25, but not good enough. An important lesson for us to learn. Centralized quarantine of confirmed cases after 2/1 was effective(R=0.3)
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more replies
Replying to @davidbaron
Virus is always rapidly mutating, generally towards being milder. So eventually, we get it and develop resistance, and virus mutates into a new form, most likely less harmful.
Replying to @davidbaron
I predict there will be containment measures eventually regardless of initial strategy.
Replying to @davidbaron
I've stumbled upon this, explaining the UK approach. nitter.vloup.ch/iandonald_psych/… It feels like a huge gamble to me, at least looking at the situation of hospitals in Italy.
Professor Ian Donald @iandonald_psych
13 Mar 2020
1. The govt strategy on #Coronavirus is more refined than those used in other countries and potentially very effective. But it is also riskier and based on a number of assumptions. They need to be correct, and the measures they introduce need to work when they are supposed to.
Replying to @davidbaron
If you don't contain it and slow its spread, the hospitals will be saturated and many people that could have recovered with the proper treatment will die. This is a long read but worth it medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coron…
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