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by chupa-chups 2295 days ago
If you can decrease the spread factor (R0) by 0.1, you're going to help a lot of people. t^(r0-0.1) is a lot less over time than t^(r0).

That's averaged, of course. If your refrigerator breaks, your individual value will increase. But as a whole, it will still decrease.
2 comments
phreeza 2295 days ago
In the SIR model, a factor 1-1/R0 of the total population end up being infected over time. That means with a reduction of 0.1, you will prevent about 0.1/R0^2 from ever being infected, so something like 2%. Of course there are other effects like less load on the hospitals.
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chupa-chups 2295 days ago
Yes, but if you look closely at italy, that's what matters: spread the amount of people requiring intensive care until it is below the threshold your region is able to provide.
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lmilcin 2295 days ago
That's right. Even if it is impossible to prevent from spreading, which I believe we will no longer be able to do, it is still much better to be sick at some other time than when everybody else is sick, too.

It also gives more time to develop protocol to treat it.

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mshook 2295 days ago
Exactly, as https://www.flattenthecurve.com/ puts it, it's all about reducing the load on the healthcare infrastructure:

"Far and away, the most important thing to do is flatten the curve of the epidemic so that our health systems can cope and to give time for the scientists to research vaccines and treatments."

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