Hammer and Dance
There’s been a lot of talk about how to deal with this Coronavirus situation. One influential paper from Imperial College outlines how doing nothing will likely result in the death of millions as the health care system collapses. More patients are in need of care than its possible to care for. This results in many of them dying who would otherwise be able to be saved. This is compounded by people with the virus and everyday regular medical problems.
It outlines two approaches to the problem. Mitigation is a halfway measure and involves so quarantine of infected and isolation of the most vulnerable. This brings the deaths down a bunch but still likely over a million. Suppression shuts everything but essential activities down for a few weeks to a few months. The death rate drops into the thousands.
The biggest problem with Suppression is that it will likely have to repeated or enforced for over a year while a treatment is developed. This becomes very hard to implement. If it works, it looks like almost nothing is happening because its been effective. Hospitals aren’t overwhelmed and millions of people aren’t becoming sick. The more effective it is, the more people will get fed up with the harsh suppression and eventually, it to collapses and we ended up with widespread infection again.
An alternative method, called the Hammer and Dance approach, involves heavy suppression now with focused response over the next 1-2yrs while treatment is developed. This plan aims to lock the virus down and preserve the healthcare system while a plan for the Dance is developed. Then, once the virus is contained, with an effective method of testing and tracking, many suppression restrictions are lifted. People infected are quickly identified and quarantined. If spread increases in certain areas, more suppression tactics are implemented as needed. If implemented effectively, the virus is contained and for most people, most of the time, life goes back to semi-normality. Big gatherings are still like banned and travel is restricted but day to day life goes on.
In order for that kind of system to work would require a massive organizational effort. Can we do it? We have a rather corrupt and inept leadership at the moment. I honestly don’t know.
