The question is, for how long? Until the infection curve goes down? Until there is not a single infected cases in the whole country?
While you can't know when this will happen (especially the former, most models are inaccurate because too little is still known about this virus), I don't believe it is sustainable to keep an extended lockdown on a whole country (as opposed to "just" Hubei, which however has almost the entire population of Italy) more than a few months.
A significant proportion of infected need hospitalization to survive. If we all get sick at once, there simply aren't enough hospital beds to go around, not to mention other supplies. If the hospitals go far beyond capacity, the fatality rate will be _far_ higher than otherwise.
As to how long, I haven't seen good models. In the US we don't have very good data either, because we're testing basically noone.
Some of these models are also different in nature, which adds to the uncertainty: some are epidemiological models, some are economical (used to evaluate the impact of the measures on the long term).
Lastly, a lot of qualified people speak and try to give estimates. I'd love if they don't, because currently the best answer is "we do not know yet".
That said, I think that going over two months of lockdown will be probably ruinous for the country as whole.
And I'm not sure if people can hold psychologically being locked up for one year.
Korea also hasn’t had any hospital breakdown related increase in the death rate.
Chloroquine may indeed work, but the Korean stats are misleading if you don’t adjust for ages.
Also very important to quantify side effect risks, even if it's a rough estimate. For example, if a 70 year old patient has already progressed to dyspena, they might have something like a 20% mortality rate from COVID. Even if there is a side effect profile for the treatment that normally would be considered very dangerous, it may be well worth it to administer it.
We see the same thing with chemotherapy or radiation treatment. The side effects are terrible and fairly often fatal, but they are safer than the disease. This is the situation in which we find ourselves.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S088394412...
What you're saying is true, but you're assuming that Chloroquine + Kaletra is better than Chloroquine by itself, and we don't have the data for that yet.
Do you have a source for the Chinese recommendations?
They state:
4. Antiviral therapies: Interferon-alpha (adult: 5 million units or equivalent can be added to 2ml sterile injection water and delivered with a nebulizer twice daily), lopinavir/ritonavir (adult: 200mg/50mg/tablet, 2 tablets twice daily; the length of treatment should not exceed 10 days), ribavirin (recommended in combination with interferon or lopinavir/ritonavir, adult: 500mg twice or three times daily via IV, the length of treatment should not exceed 10 days), chloroquine phosphate (adult 18-65 years old weighing more than 50kg: 500mg twice daily for 7 days; bodyweight less than 50kg: 500mg twice daily for day 1 and 2, 500mg once daily for day 3 through 7); umifenovir (adult: 200mg three times daily; the length of treatment should not exceed 10 days).
Pay attention to issues such as adverse drug reactions, contraindications (for example, chloroquine should not be given to patients with heart diseases), and drug interactions. Further evaluate the efficacy of current treatment regimens in clinical applications. Using 3 or more antiviral drugs is not recommended. Corresponding medication should be discontinued should intolerable side effects appear.
Source as I posted on other submissions
Chloroquine is mostly admitted as a valid treatment now
Chloroquine has a long history with many diseases of "sorta, but not really" working when subjected to actual test.
Please don't spread unsubstantiated info.
I haven’t found the source paper if there is one yet — I can’t read Chinese except with google translate
Chloroquines have a long history of this in viral studies.
That said, it’s an approved drug, so it will be applied and we’ll see how it goes. But don’t spread rumors about its effectiveness, because the truth is, we don’t know.
Relevant XKCD: https://www.xkcd.com/1217/
Chloroquines will be tried since they already pass the "safe" bar.
However, I suspect that if they worked "in vivo", we would have compelling data on that from China already. The fact that we don't have such data suggests that they don't.
We seem to have much better data about the effectiveness of standard anti-virals already.
Probably if they handed some out and told people to take a few as soon as they got a cough + some temperature it would help things. (http://news.southcn.com/nfplus/gdjktt/content/2020-03/09/con...)
Quarantining is the only thing that will help in this situation. There's no other solution we have as a society to slow down the pace of infections. People who normally wouldn't die will die because of the lack of medical care.
The problem we face in the US is lack of testing, which makes it impossible to do anything except a quarantine.