MIT moves all classes online for the rest of the semester

Re:MIT moves all classes online for the rest of the semester by Trasmatta on Tuesday March 10, 2020 @07:00PM (#22540857)

The goal at this point should be to flatten the curve as much as possible to prevent overwhelming healthcare until a vaccine is developed and tested. Nobody thinks this is going to be a permanent measure.

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Re:MIT moves all classes online for the rest of the semester by fspeech on Tuesday March 10, 2020 @08:53PM (#22541813)

Or even just more personal protective gears for medical personnel, more isolation wards, and more ventilators could be readied. The medical system can be built up and reconfigured to take care of this disease but it needs time.

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Re:MIT moves all classes online for the rest of the semester by andrejk on Wednesday March 11, 2020 @07:22AM (#22544828)

A good analysis on this point from a public health perspective: https://www.flattenthecurve.com/

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Re:MIT moves all classes online for the rest of the semester by xur17 on Tuesday March 10, 2020 @07:18PM (#22541044)

I don't disagree with the flattening the curve bit, but I do wonder - my understanding is that a vaccine is at minimum a year out. Would we need to keep doing this for that entire time period, or are there other factors at play here?

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Re:MIT moves all classes online for the rest of the semester by Gibbon1 on Tuesday March 10, 2020 @08:03PM (#22541454)

I think that there is a rough relation between the infection rate and the percent of the population that gets infected.

Consider raw r0 of 3.0. Each case infects three other people. But as more and more of the population gets infected and acquires immunity the infection rate drops. Say half the population is immune due to prior infection. The rate is now half r0 = 3.0 * 0.5 Left unchecked 66% of the population will get infected and then the disease dies out.

Social distancing, hand washing, quarantine reduces r0. And reduces the total number that the virus can infect before is dies out. Cut r0 from 3.0 to 1.5 and the number of infected goes from 66% to 33%.

In the US that would be 100 million people. And maybe a million fewer deaths.

Scuttlebutt is China and Taiwan due to high early compliance have r0 down to about 0.3, which means the epidemic is in a state of exponential crash.

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Re:MIT moves all classes online for the rest of the semester by pfranz on Tuesday March 10, 2020 @10:17PM (#22542316)

There are shortages in the supply chain; hand sanitizer, masks, and tests for coronavirus in addition to overwhelming hospitals by sick people. If there aren't open beds or staff (ideally who aren't overworked), people who otherwise would get medical attention will die.

If a vaccine wasn't even in the picture flattening the curve would help with these things.

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Re:MIT moves all classes online for the rest of the semester by xur17 on Tuesday March 10, 2020 @10:24PM (#22542353)

That's a good point. Also, my understanding is that antiviral medications might be an option in a "few" months.

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Re:MIT moves all classes online for the rest of the semester by bluGill on Wednesday March 11, 2020 @09:24AM (#22545587)

There are a lot of things in the future. Antivirals show promise of working in a few months - but we don't actually know they will work (or for that matter that the virus won't evolve a new unique resistance to them). It will take time to figure out what works best for treatment.

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