Tuesday, April 14, 2020

The Long Haul. We're Only Getting Started.


The impetus, even among relatively progressive governors, to find ways to re-open the economy, carries the blended scent of necessity and desperation. Life must go on even at the cost of life itself.

The sense I have of what they're contemplating is a system of abrupt starts and stops. Get people back to work but, if the virus comes storming back, it's everybody sheltering in place again. On-off-on-off-on again.

A new research paper warns we'll be needing measures such as social-distancing well into 2022.
The paper, published in the journal Science, concludes that a one-time lockdown will not be sufficient to bring the pandemic under control and that secondary peaks could be larger than the current one without continued restrictions. 
One scenario predicted a resurgence could occur as far in the future as 2025 in the absence of a vaccine or effective treatment. 
Marc Lipsitch, a professor of epidemiology at Harvard and co-author of the study, said: “Infections spread when there are two things: infected people and susceptible people. Unless there is some enormously larger amount of herd immunity than we’re aware of … the majority of the population is still susceptible.
“Predicting the end of the pandemic in the summer [of 2020] is not consistent with what we know about the spread of infections.”
What emerges from this paper and others like it is that our future hinges on the timely development of an effective vaccine and the challenge of vaccinating the population globally.

Has anyone heard what the anti-vaxxers have to say about this?

3 comments:

Trailblazer said...

Consider this!
It's not reassuring.

https://theconversation.com/how-hiv-became-a-treatable-chronic-disease-51238

TB

The Disaffected Lib said...

Will we encounter mass contagions of the lethality of HIV and require daily medication for life?

Coronavirus is plainly in a different league. If you contract HIV, you're almost certainly to develop AIDS if it is left untreated. The outcome was near 100 per cent. Coronavirus affects different victims in a range of ways. Some can contract the virus and have no symptoms. Others have flu-like ailments. Still others lapse into respiratory failure and die.

I expect the first drugs we'll see are anti-virals that don't fend off the disease but reduce its lethality. Finally there'll be a vaccine.

the salamander said...

.. in times of yore.. as presented via Hollywood.. we saw a 'Holy Trinity' of Politics (Royalty) Religion.. & the Wealthy.. decide essentially everything.. (it was complicated of course).. news travelled via tinkers, snake oil pimps and from the misc pulpits.. The 'Courts' were a hodge podge of 'Who's Who'..

.. in current times.. as presented via TV, Radio.. we get a new equation in charge.. Big Business pushes Politics around, Religion has lost sway.. but still has a weird seat at the table.. and a new player called Big Media is just wholly owned subsidiaries of Big Business.. and a conditional ally of Politics (IndyMedia is a ravenous scattered herd of orphan wolverines, unconcerned it has no seat at the table.. seeing as its quite capable of jumping right onto the table) The Supreme Court needs to up their game.. Canada cannot afford to have it weakened in any way.. or the Federal Courts

.. meanwhile.. Mother Nature is just plain out of fucks to give.. Whomever thinks they are 'the dealer' in the economic poker game.. needs a wakeup call. The 'House' is Mother Nature.. her realm is this planet.. and that's who's wheelin n dealin..

PS.. Watching Jason Kenney squirm & worm in Alberta is painful.. that boy took Albertans for a ride.. and now he needs to cover ass.. it won't be pretty.. In a way, I see him as a microcosm a la Donald Trump & America .. that 'Great Again' - 'Alberta Advantage'.. getting more raggedy assed by th day.. eh