[75dvtwin]

30% is a big number. Reducing number of silient carriers would be great.

I am also wondering if, in general, our societies would benefit from a periodic self-quarantine, as a prophylactic measure.

I guess, if, after this pandemic is over -- we see fewer cases of H1N1 and other upper-respiratory transmittable viruses -- we could conclude that periodic, world-wide self quarantine should be written into laws of public health.

May be every 5 years or so, for 1.5 months stop all non-essential travel, work commute, public gatherings and so on.

Do not know if the above idea has any historical precedent, but, clearly our world has developed into very inter-connected, redundant, essentially unbreakable pathogen re-transmission network. So we need to respond to this.

[LordDragonfang]

Alternatively, just mandate giving service workers more paid sick days and actually enforce the laws against making them come in while sick. Allow telecommuting to be the norm. Implement better, universal healthcare.

As it turns out, lots of crazy leftist policies are actually good for the public health.

[MickerNews]

As unemployment is about to skyrocket during this pandemic, America's tight coupling of healthcare with purchasing power is going to be revealed as a poor design for keeping maximal citizens healthy. Spain has nationalised all its private hospitals.

[75dvtwin]

I am not sure that >"mandate giving service workers more paid sick days and actually enforce the laws against making them come in while sick" ,

is an alternative to what I suggested earlier

> "... word wide self quarantine should be written into laws of public health. May be every 5 years or so, for 1.5 months stop all non-essential travel, work commute, public gatherings and so on...".

With regards to your note on >"... lots of crazy leftist policies .. ."

In my view, centralized control of public health, appears to be a bottleneck to rapid response (not just because of process structuring, but also because massive centralization of money appropriation mandate, becomes a mechanism for unstoppable corruption spread, and non-meritocracy based promotions).

I never heard that conservatives are against telecommuting...

If anything there is, probably, a conservative sentiment against massive urbanization and globalization of supply lines.

[joi_de_vivre]

Ahh, indeed. Unlike the meritocratic private insurance industry, which definitely doesn't benefit from and encourage corruption, "centralized control of public health" would be a total waste of taxpayer money! It's not as if every country with a system like that is exponentially more functional and livable than those without!

[bawolff]

I doubt it would stop the flu, etc. Maybe slow it down for a little bit, but well there are different strains of flu every year, it stands to reason that every year it starts from just a small group and rapidly spreads. I think the effect on the flu will be negligable shortly after quarintine ends.*

*IANA-person who knows about this subject.

[quintushoratius]

Supposedly, the February break that New England school districts follow was designed to stop the flu. Take everyone out of school for a week to stop the spread, hope that everyone that shows symptoms by the end of the week stays home.

Of course, that doesn't work when kids still go to school when sick, which they do. When I was a kid the school used to give awards to kids with perfect attendance. Now February break seems to be an annoyance for most parents and they find daycare alternatives, as well as sending marginal (or even outright sick!) children to school.

[75dvtwin]

with the institutionalized, periodic prophylactic quarantine -- I was thinking, we could break/slowdown the pathogen re-transmission network (at least temporary).

I was thinking that the above realization, could come as outcome of 'what could be done better' analysis, at the end of this pandemic.