https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/04/23/a-...
It includes additional promising candidates.
As I understand it, and I'd be happy for expert correction: lockdown has additional benefits beyond curve flattening; it also accounts for decreased transmission, which can get us to a point where we can track and suppress outbreaks individually while opening up the economy. That's essentially what seems to have happened in South Korea.
Influenza has a lower R0 than SARS2, and it absolutely kills people. Worth destroying our economy over, all by itself? Ehhhh... I mean, we could have done this at any time, and we didn't, so no.
Nice side effect that translates directly to lives saved? Absolutely.
Does it offset other probable side effects, such as increased heart attack mortality from patients being unwilling to go to the hospital, or increased suicide risk from sudden business failures and unemployment?
No idea, like, none. Biostatisticians are going to be crunching 2020 for the rest of the decade.
So then: if you're going to take on a massive economic hit just from altered consumer behavior, does it make sense to get the worst of both possible worlds by also relaxing regulatory constraints that are demonstrably saving lives?
It's not my stance. This is more narrowly-focused than that: we could end the flu season early, every year, by imposing lockdown from January 1st to February 15th.
But we don't, and this isn't the flu, it's a novel disease which kills many more people by even the most conservative estimate.
Still, as a side effect of the eminently rational (and economically painful) precautions which we've taken against it, ending the flu season a couple months early is a nice bonus.
Er, yes.
Project those C19 stats out across the whole population, and assume (generously) herd immunity effects at 70% that halt the progression, and you're looking at (a) mortality rate that swamps that of all wars, terrorist attacks, and natural disasters faced by the US for the last 50 years, right?
Yes. "Flattening the curve" just means keeping the hospitalization rate below what the medical system can handle. The curve stays flat near the peak rate. See the curves at [1]. The Financial Times has been updating those daily since early March. Some countries show a decline, but other than China and South Korea, which did heavy testing and lockdown, most countries peak and decline a bit, then level out above 50% of peak.
That continues until "herd immunity", either via vaccine or exhaustion of uninfected people. That's somewhere around 70-80% for this.
The vaccine situation is looking up. At least two vaccines are already beginning clinical testing for effectiveness. One from Oxford, one from Germany.
[1] https://www.ft.com/coronavirus-latest