Re:Miscalculation at every level left U.S. unequipped to fig...
by jrochkind1 on Thursday April 30, 2020 @12:13AM
(#23027359)
So, you are right that the "correct" and reasonable thing to do would be to use the social distancing to buy time to set up things to control the virus when you relax social distancing.
Not so much a vaccine -- "18 months" is actually already very optimistic for a vaccine, it could be years.
BUT. To increase your medical capacity, so that when cases go up you can handle them. From making sure there's enough PPE to making sure there's enough staff-- to setting up things like daily checks on people isolating at home to see if their risk level has gone up and they should be hospitalized (people can go from okay to dead very quickly with this disease).
And then also -- setting up an enormous testing regime. If you don't know what the infection rate is, you are "flying blind" -- you need to know when you relax 'lockdown' in some ways, how much of an effect this has on infection, so you can adjust accordingly, figure out the ways you can optimize for maximizing social and economic activity while minimizing infection. You have to know the infection rate to do this!
And then, based on testing, you need contact tracing (and more testing) to try to catch infected people before they infect others, to keep slowing down the infection rate even while relaxing "lockdown". And you need comfortable (voluntary) isolation facilities so people can be isolated away from their households so their households don't get infected -- and can be closer to medical care should they need it.
And you need all kinds of education and social support to make people comfortable and secure enough to increase compliance with all of this.
So okay, yes, that is the point of the waiting. Or... it's supposed to be.
The problem is we're doing really bad at setting this stuff up. So that's the point... but it's not clear that's what we're doing. This stuff should have been ramped up, with a seriously "apollo moon shot" level of focus and investment -- starting in january. But at the end of April, we haven't made too much progress at much of it.
So it can appear that all we're doing is waiting... for, like, some kind of miracle, or for it to go away. Which will not work.
So the arguments over the "lockdown" in terms of "have we waited long enough or should we wait longer" are totally missing the point. The "lockdown" sucks, it is TERRIBLE. But to end it, we have to as a society be doing things that we are somehow really failing at doing. It is somewhat baffling, and highly alarming -- how is one of the richest countries on the planet, a huge locus of medical and public health expertise -- doing so poorly at this. And instead of expressing alarm about this and collective resolve to make it better... people are fighting about "the lockdown" as if it is an independent "wait it out", have we waited it out long enough? As if it is unrelated to the things we gotta be doing to make 'long enough' happen. It is a mess. It's gonna get worse before it gets better, at this point.
Not so much a vaccine -- "18 months" is actually already very optimistic for a vaccine, it could be years.
BUT. To increase your medical capacity, so that when cases go up you can handle them. From making sure there's enough PPE to making sure there's enough staff-- to setting up things like daily checks on people isolating at home to see if their risk level has gone up and they should be hospitalized (people can go from okay to dead very quickly with this disease).
And then also -- setting up an enormous testing regime. If you don't know what the infection rate is, you are "flying blind" -- you need to know when you relax 'lockdown' in some ways, how much of an effect this has on infection, so you can adjust accordingly, figure out the ways you can optimize for maximizing social and economic activity while minimizing infection. You have to know the infection rate to do this!
And then, based on testing, you need contact tracing (and more testing) to try to catch infected people before they infect others, to keep slowing down the infection rate even while relaxing "lockdown". And you need comfortable (voluntary) isolation facilities so people can be isolated away from their households so their households don't get infected -- and can be closer to medical care should they need it.
And you need all kinds of education and social support to make people comfortable and secure enough to increase compliance with all of this.
So okay, yes, that is the point of the waiting. Or... it's supposed to be.
The problem is we're doing really bad at setting this stuff up. So that's the point... but it's not clear that's what we're doing. This stuff should have been ramped up, with a seriously "apollo moon shot" level of focus and investment -- starting in january. But at the end of April, we haven't made too much progress at much of it.
So it can appear that all we're doing is waiting... for, like, some kind of miracle, or for it to go away. Which will not work.
So the arguments over the "lockdown" in terms of "have we waited long enough or should we wait longer" are totally missing the point. The "lockdown" sucks, it is TERRIBLE. But to end it, we have to as a society be doing things that we are somehow really failing at doing. It is somewhat baffling, and highly alarming -- how is one of the richest countries on the planet, a huge locus of medical and public health expertise -- doing so poorly at this. And instead of expressing alarm about this and collective resolve to make it better... people are fighting about "the lockdown" as if it is an independent "wait it out", have we waited it out long enough? As if it is unrelated to the things we gotta be doing to make 'long enough' happen. It is a mess. It's gonna get worse before it gets better, at this point.