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by scott_s 2288 days ago
The US can't follow the South Korean model because the US does not have the testing infrastructure for it: https://www.propublica.org/article/how-south-korea-scaled-co...

This article presents it as dueling narratives: open versus authoritarian. This implies that, as of now, the US has some choice. But we don't. We screwed up testing when it was small and containable, and now it's not.

2 comments

I think the idea is that if we go in lock-down for 2 weeks, infections can get back to a manageable level - and then we can open up by testing like mad.
Two weeks isn't nearly enough, and nobody is on true lockdown yet. Two weeks from now people are going to be questioning why we did the lockdowns, because they will appear to have had no impact at all.

The general public still doesn't realize that it's going to be two months before the shelter in place and general social distancing rules start to make a difference.

Even then, after months of lockdown, it's just going to flare up again as soon as the rules are relaxed.

I didn't realize that. Man, we're so fucked. Batten the hatches.
Two weeks is barely enough for infections growth to stop (I.e. second derivative) as evidenced by Italian numbers. It’ll take months to bring total infections back down to something reasonable.
Things change, I get right now the US does not have the choice but this thing is not going away and choices have to be made as to how to deal with it. Raising awareness of other options that are successful is a good thing. Constructive criticism can help.