What happens if a pandemic hits?

What happens if a Covid-1 9 coronavirus pandemic knocks? It’s time to at least start asking that question. What will the repercussions be, if the virus spreads worldwide? How will it change how “were living”, job, train, and expedition?

Don’t get all disaster-movie now. Some people seem to have the notion that a pandemic will make shutting down borders, constructing walls, canceling all air travel, and quarantining entire people, indefinitely. That is entirely incorrect. Containment struggles can slow down an outbreak and buy time to prepare, but if a pandemic stumbles, by definition, containment has failed, and further assaults will be pointless if not counterproductive. Rather 😛 TAGEND

Absolutely must-read. Peter Sandman and Jody Lanard are super clear thinkers and columnists. I wish I had written this section. Having said that, this describes a rational response , not inevitably the response all govs will make https :// t.co/ V1EOawZZQo pic.twitter.com/ zwWPD8l 9Bj

— Marc Lipsitch (@ mlipsitch) February 23, 2020

The focus will swap from containment to mitigation, i.e. slowing down how fast the virus spreads through a population in which it has made spring. Mitigation can occur via individual measures, such as frequent hand soap, and collective measurements, such as” social distancing” — abandonments of mass occurrences, closures, endorse remote drudgery and remote education wherever possible, and so forth.

The slower the pandemic moves, the smoother the demands on health-care systems will be; the less likelihood those arrangements will have of becoming overloaded; the more they can learn about how best to treat the virus; and the greater the number of people who may eventually is conducive to a inoculation, if one is developed. I recommend the whole thread above this instructive graph 😛 TAGEND

The ultimate goal of such measures is to reduce the ferocity of an outbreak, flattening out the epidemic arch and therefore reducing strain on the health care system, and on social economic well-being( see this graphic representation ). pic.twitter.com/ fWOCq4 53 Bx

— Josh Michaud (@ joshmich) February 22, 2020

An important question for those of us in the media is: how do we report on Covid-1 9, in these times of enormous flow and ambiguity? Let me direct you to this excellent Scientific American piece by Harvard’s Bill Hanage and Marc Lipsitch:” How to Report on the COVID-1 9 Outbreak Responsibly .”( Disclosure/ renunciation; Bill is a personal friend .)

We think reporting should distinguish between at least three levels of information:( A) what we know is true;( B) what the hell is think is true–fact-based analysis that too depend on inference, extrapolation or educated interpretation of details that show an individual’s view of what is most likely to be going on; and( C) minds and gues […] realities about this epidemic that have lasted a few days are far more reliable than the latest “facts” that have just come out, which may be incorrect or unrepresentative and thus misleading. […] Distinguish between whether something ever happens and whether it is happening at a frequency that matters.

Read the whole thing. As an mind reporter, I’m on somewhat safe field, in that everything I write is definitionally C) in the above taxonomy … but basically everything I’m citing weighs as B ).

Which includes the following statement: when I say ” if a” in the first paragraph above, I truly aim” when the .” A pandemic is coming; the question is at what magnitude. I recognize that may sound like irresponsible doomsaying. I strongly help you to be skeptical, to read widely, and to draw your own conclusions. But the roar of professional articulations is growing too loud for me to ignore. Here’s an entire Twitter thread connect to epidemiologists at Harvard, Johns Hopkins, and the Universities of Basel and Bern, saying so with very little ambiguity 😛 TAGEND

Round up of( auxiliary) profs of infectious disease spread saying we’re likely past being able to contain coronavirus, i.e. headed for a pandemic and mitigation( NOT saying containment struggles are now pointless ): @mlipsitch https :// t.co/ mP76jHPmGT1/ 2…

— Chris Wymant (@ ChrisWymant) February 23, 2020

Don’t panic. There is a great deal we can and will do to limit and mitigate this pandemic. It’s all too easy to imagine nervousnes becoming far more dangerous than the virus itself. Don’t be allowed to happen. It’s also worth noting that its mortality rate is likely significantly lower than the headline 2 %, not least because that doesn’t include mild undiagnosed occurrences 😛 TAGEND

15. Think of an iceberg. With #COVID19, it’s easy to see the deaths/ serious cases. But people with mild illness don’t go to hospital/ don’t get researched. Studies have to be done to find them. We need a clearer picture. If the data exist, share. If they don’t, generate them. pic.twitter.com/ 26 yau3wpCF

— Helen Branswell (@ HelenBranswell) February 22, 2020

Furthermore, the rate seems much lower yet for anyone under 60 years old, and staggeringly lower for anyone under 50. Some more context viewing mitigation 😛 TAGEND

Let me pick up, where I left off yesterday: As #covid19 attempts shift from containment to mitigation, we have a window of opportunity to prepare the world. What does that planned?

— Kai Kupferschmidt (@ kakape) February 23, 2020

Unless all of those people cited above are wrong, which seems unlikely, the authorities concerned will all spend the next weeks and months sharing the really strange collective know of watching — through our laptops and phones, through Twitter and the mass media — the spread of this pandemic through much of the world in what will seem like slow motion. Our day-to-day lives are ultimately likely to change moderately.( If your office job isn’t remote-work-friendly today, I assure you, it is likely to be this time next year .) But it will be very far from the end of the world countries. I suppose we’ll all be surprised by how soon it begins to feel almost normal.