Grass roots ‘lockdown’
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The “children don’t give it to adults” theory is based on the observation that children don’t get very sick and don’t have much of a viral load to pass on when they infrequently do. The immune system of the young seems more adaptable to fighting the virus.
Spanish Flu was the opposite. Older people had some immunity and the young immune systems had to fight it for the first time.
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Different aged people will have different immune systems with different learned abilities. The young will adapt quicker to new viruses the old will be more resistant to viruses that have been encountered before in the population. Humans have been fighting viruses for 2-3 million years.
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@Jeffrey said in Grass roots ‘lockdown’:
My guess is that the virus spreads incredibly quickly but with low fatality. I believe that close to 20-25% of NYC residents have had the virus (per random antibody testing), but only a fraction of those were “sick” in the ordinary language sense of the word. This is why it overwhelms almost every political and economic system without a plan ahead of time. By the time it hits hospitals it has already spread widely.
If those numbers are accurate then the point at which hospitals become overwhelmed would be at or near the peak demand. We were imagining at the start of the outbreak that the system would break at some small fraction of what an unchecked virus progression would require. But at 25% of the population already having had it, you've seen the ballpark of the worst case scenario.
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@Jeffrey said in Grass roots ‘lockdown’:
My guess is that the virus spreads incredibly quickly but with low fatality.
What would you consider 'low'?
Right now NYC has 19k deaths. If you take the recent antibody test as gospel, you've got 21% of the city that has been infected.
That would be an infection fatality rate of over 1%. (with case fatality rate exceeding 10%)
And even that would be a lower bound for two reasons - (1) the antibody test likely had selection bias issues, and (2) I base those numbers on the normal population of the city but many people have left.
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The 'children don't give it to adults' hypothesis strikes me as confusing absence of evidence for evidence of absence. But I haven't much looked into it.
I thought Sweden's calculation with respect to schools was more on the economic and social benefits of providing child care.
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@jon-nyc said in Grass roots ‘lockdown’:
The 'children don't give it to adults' hypothesis strikes me as confusing absence of evidence for evidence of absence. But I haven't much looked into it.
I thought Sweden's calculation with respect to schools was more on the economic and social benefits of providing child care.
First I heard of the notion.
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/05/should-schools-reopen-kids-role-pandemic-still-mystery#
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Loki - Yes, your article mentions that the Dutch are reopening elementary schools based on the theory that children don’t infect adults. Closing schools helps primarily because then parents don’t contact each other at pick up etc. At least that is the theory. We will know in 4-6 weeks.
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Horace - Yes, but people who have it and recover suggest it is like having a triple flu for 3 weeks. There are plenty of reasons not to want to get it, esp. before they know how to treat it, beyond not dying.
What if they “reopen the economy” and no one comes?
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Jon - While I said people were more compliant now than a month ago, nearly everyone I know or see takes risks (e. g. elevator usage) that I consider very very risky. I suspect the virus at this point is endemic and persistent and cannot be driven from the human population. Even if the whole US went into 6 month Wuhan level lockdown, the second we had international travel it would come back. I am not sure any lockdown could nuke the virus. It was just to buy us some time.
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Other than New Zealand or Taiwan or other island - where have such travel restrictions worked? The illegal immigration debate is over the fact that millions walk into our country by foot. Whether you think this is good or bad or just what happens, it doesn’t support a “ nuke the curve and ban entrance” strategy for the US.
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I think we need to wait to see how it does in bigger places. Lots of countries, maybe most, have a version of it now. China for example. Israel implemented it early, but it might as well be an island nation with a single airport. Korea will be more interesting.
