Re:Scientists create antibody that defeats coronavirus in lab
by mlyle on Tuesday May 05, 2020 @02:12AM
(#23077034)
> > But natural infections don't spread like this. High-contact individuals are connected to low contact individuals. An epidemic spreads organically through the population, infecting who it happens to, not who you want it to.
Surely high contact people are infected -more-, though, no?
In many ways, R0 is a "somewhat worst case number", in that it's something you observe in a population where the virus propagates well. There are likely to be other populations that it doesn't spread quite so well in-- either because of innate susceptibility or behavior differences.
> Additionally, if we're talking natural infection to get to herd immunity, you have the issue of overshoot, so unless you're very precise on measures to tamp down on transmission before you get to herd immunity levels, you easily overshoot the herd immunity threshold by quite a bit.
Exponential processes with a lot of delay and noise are a difficult controls problem, but it wouldn't be hard for jurisdictions that are doing well to target Rt=~ 0.95 .. 1.1 with interventions instead of trying to maintain Rt =~ 0.8. Of course, you need to be prepared to react quickly if things look like they are getting out of hand. And, thankfully, as the susceptible population drops the control problem gets a lot easier, because there's a ceiling of how high Rt can get...
Surely high contact people are infected -more-, though, no?
In many ways, R0 is a "somewhat worst case number", in that it's something you observe in a population where the virus propagates well. There are likely to be other populations that it doesn't spread quite so well in-- either because of innate susceptibility or behavior differences.
> Additionally, if we're talking natural infection to get to herd immunity, you have the issue of overshoot, so unless you're very precise on measures to tamp down on transmission before you get to herd immunity levels, you easily overshoot the herd immunity threshold by quite a bit.
Exponential processes with a lot of delay and noise are a difficult controls problem, but it wouldn't be hard for jurisdictions that are doing well to target Rt=~ 0.95 .. 1.1 with interventions instead of trying to maintain Rt =~ 0.8. Of course, you need to be prepared to react quickly if things look like they are getting out of hand. And, thankfully, as the susceptible population drops the control problem gets a lot easier, because there's a ceiling of how high Rt can get...