[fpgaminer]

> Extripating the virus completely from the population, and keeping it out through total physical isolation of that population from the rest of the world, is a tall task.

Note that I wasn't arguing for that. My argument is that a few simple, low impact measures would be enough to drop the effective infectivity of the virus low enough that it would fizzle out. There's reason to believe that a simple combination of limiting high-risk social engagements coupled with _strict_, enforced universal face mask requirements would be enough.

That wouldn't 100% eliminate the virus, as it would continue to spread and pool in countries without those guidelines. But for countries that do maintain them it would never gain a foothold.

Keep that up until a vaccine is deployed.

Easy. Low impact on quality of life. That's all I'm arguing.

[CryptoPunk]

>>Note that I wasn't arguing for that. My argument is that a few simple, low impact measures would be enough to drop the effective infectivity of the virus low enough that it would fizzle out.

What's the difference between a virus being extripated from a population, and a virus "fizzling out"?

If it's not extripated, then it will immediately start spreading again as soon as those measures are lifted.

>>That wouldn't 100% eliminate the virus, as it would continue to spread and pool in countries without those guidelines.

Note that I didn't say that you argued for eliminating the virus from the entire world. I said that you are advocating extripating the virus from one particular country, and I argued that that would be extremely difficult to pull off and then maintain by physically isolating that country from the rest of the world.

[fpgaminer]

> If it's not extripated, then it will immediately start spreading again as soon as those measures are lifted.

The goal is to maintain measures until a vaccine arrives, eliminating the threat for any said country.

> I argued that that would be extremely difficult to pull off and then maintain by physically isolating that country from the rest of the world.

You don't need the country to be isolated from the rest of the world. If the effective reproduction (R) of your country's population is below 1 it won't spread there, even if the rest of the world is letting it run wild and free.

And it's likely we can get R below 1 for any given population with just strict mask usage and curtailing some higher risk social activities. That's my argument. We don't need to do messy lockdowns, ruin our social lives, etc. If everyone just got on board with those simple measures instead of being selfish.

[CryptoPunk]

>>The goal is to maintain measures until a vaccine arrives, eliminating the threat for any said country.

Yes of course, but if the crop of vaccines prove, after more extensive usage, ineffective, or if the virus mutates quickly enough to make the currently developed vaccines ineffective, as many coronaviruses have been known to do, it may lead to indefinite on-off lockdowns.

>You don't need the country to be isolated from the rest of the world. If the effective reproduction (R) of your country's population is below 1 it won't spread there, even if the rest of the world is letting it run wild and free.

That only persists as long as the lockdown measures you mentioned are in place. Yes if you maintain those measures indefinitely, you can keep the virus at bay indefinitely, and that's a different claim than I thought you were initially making.