[skellington]

As usual, American leaders are choosing OPTION 3 which is the worst option:

OPTION 1. (SWEDEN) Control spread just enough to not overwhelm the health care system, but no more than that, in order to get to herd immunity as quickly as possible. This assumes that the area-under-the-curve will be very similar to any option that spreads the time-frame out. This level of lockdown is possible to implement for long periods of time because its impact on regular life is relatively moderate and it doesn't require extreme testing availability or extreme population compliance.

OPTION 2. (S KOREA) Control with aggressive contact tracing in order to attempt to eradicate or outlive COVID. This assumes that COVID can be controlled and that doing so will ultimately reduce the area-under-the-curve (because if it didn't, spreading the time-frame out would be pointless). This level of lockdown is possible to implement for long periods of time because its impact on regular life is relatively moderate but it does require extreme testing availability and very high population compliance.

We don't yet know what the full impact of 1 vs 2 will be because of externalities that are hard to model, but both seem like legitimate approaches.

OPTION 3. (USA) Control spread aggressively so herd immunity won't be reached for a very long time, do this using a shelter-in-place model that will destroy the economy so you'll be forced to abandon it at some point, have no post shelter-in-place plan so resurgence is practically guaranteed since the goal isn't herd immunity nor aggressive contact tracing.

Option 3 is the most destructive, so let's choose that one.

[Skunkleton]

We already missed the boat on options 1 and 2 due to various governmental incompetencies. Did you not notice that a full third of all cases globally have been in America?

[skellington]

I disagree that we missed the boat on OPTION 1. Option 1 may be the only path currently available to us by removing restrictions in a controlled way.

OPTION 2 is even still a possibility IF we massively ramped up testing and contact tracing. This is possible in theory, but we just not hearing ANYTHING about the real status of mass testing and/or contact tracing procedures (including things like the apple-google app).

[Skunkleton]

It’s frustrating to consider, but if we were capable of the level of testing we would need to re open in the next few weeks, why haven’t we started doing it?

[landryraccoon]

Cases is a very poor metric for this because a country that does zero tests will have zero cases, and therefore look very good.

Total deaths IMHO is much more comparable statistic between countries. By that metric it looks a little better for the US, since we have slightly less than a third of the world death total.

[dwaltrip]

For a better comparison, I think you need to look at deaths per capita.

The US is somewhere in the middle of the pack on this metric.

[Skunkleton]

That doesn’t capture what’s important. There are plenty of places that could probably have never closed and not had any real spike in infections. It’s places where people live densely that are at the greatest risk. The Bay Area in particular probably isn’t at the top of that list, but it is still a higher risk area. Really we just need more testing, and randomized testing. I think we would all be able to move forward more intelligently if we had data.

[kvetching]

That just means that US has the most advanced testing regime.

[JustResign]

You wrote this with a straight face? Or this is a Trump quote?

[pacofvf]

Where is Spain and Italy in your Options?

[skellington]

Sorry, I didn't want to enumerate all of the minor permutations. As far as I know, Spain and Italy are also doing OPTION 3. They have no realistic post SIP plan.

[greendude29]

These are not mutually exclusive.

Option 3 is a consequence of not delivering on Option 2.

No one is advocating holding the SIP just because its fun. The reason is because of a lack of control on it (Option 2).

Removing SIP prematurely and having a resurgence WILL destroy the economy as well, along with human lives. It's the worst of all options.

[skellington]

YES, but SIP can't stand for long, the people will revolt, a great depression will have other human costs. Choosing the option that's not tenable is bad politics.