An Alternative Plan to Mitigate Covid-19 Spread and Get Americans Back to Work
medium.comSo, where are the masks? There’s an enormous push this week to end the clampdown and return to work. As this article says, masks are critical. Well, where are they? How many? When are we getting them? When will we be at capacity to test sufficiently? Where’s the legislation that defines how we’ll trace contacts while protecting our rights?
Second, this article glosses over the central point, choosing instead to focus on how deaths are focused in the elderly: 40% of hospitalizations are people below 50. At scale that’s an enormous strain on the healthcare system. Will it withstand?
Temperature checks are better than nothing, but what about the long incubation period, and asymptomatic cases?
Yes, this clampdown is wrecking the economy. But this was the path chosen when western leaders decided that a short term economic slowdown was to be avoided at all costs. Not every decision is reversible. Severe cognitive dissonance is at play right now, and people are struggling to comprehend that we’re really here.
Mitigation is possible — but just how far are we from realistically implementing all the necessary protocols and acquiring the needed goods?
Regarding masks: The law changed a few days ago. Previous law was that 3M could only sell 5m masks/month to healthcare workers even though they produce 35M masks/month. This law was the main reason for the mask shortage to hospital workers. Since the law change, mask shortage to hospital workers should not be an issue for much longer. https://www.washingtonpost.com
China makes 200 million masks per day. South Korea makes 10 million masks per day.
The US population is roughly 330 million (according to 2018 census). If the US ramps production to even half of China, we'd produce enough masks, one for each person in just 3-4 days.
IMO, gov needed to contract mask manufacturers to produce more masks 2 months ago. Still not too late. Can't rely on manufacturers to simple up production. They should have gov contracts to make motivate and ensure that their overproduction will not be in vain.
Even as someone who has vulnerable dependents and has been following the situation closely, I agree that complete lockdown is unsustainable for much longer.
I agree with these recommendations. I would also add that increasing the capacity of the hospital system to deal with additional load (i.e. increased production of ventilators, therapy drugs, etc.) is also necessary.
On the positive side, from what I can tell, many of these things are already happening.
I think lockdown procedures (i.e. broad stay-at-home orders, etc.) are absolutely necessary as a stop-gap measure to slow the spread of the disease. But slowing the spread is not the endgame. The point of slowing is so that we have time to plan the endgame, and to ramp up the other countermeasures.