When a new major pandemic strikes, short of an effective vaccine, there are really no other magic bullets to combat such pandemic. As of it seems that there are 3 distinctly different methods which are being applied by different countries, so from a scientific stance it would be interesting to study and find out as to which one proves to be the most effective even though there will be many gray lines and then cross-correlating between these strategies:
- Shutdown and extreme social distancing which in some countries such as China and India with their huge populations, they have taken very extreme and draconian measures to combat this Covid-19 in such way.
- Herd immunity: For instance Sweden is pursuing this method. While their government has strongly encouraged the elderly to stay in shelter, their scientists believe that if about 60% of their population, mostly the younger and healthy Swedes contract and transmit such a virus which while highly contagious, its asymptomatic nature in some or many can be effective used against it via herd immunity.
- Extreme proactive measures: in this instance we can name Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea as the leaders of this method because without taking draconian measures they did very quickly jump ahead of the virus by identifying potential carriers; basically all those who had come in contact with anyone from Hubei as soon as the pandemic broke out, whether directly or indirectly, for the purpose of strict quarantining and treatment.
Of course lines get frequently crossed between these three methods but the idea is that one method becomes the prime strategy. I can not speak to the effectiveness of each method as it correlates to each individual country but I just can not see as to how the second or the third methods could be implemented here in the U.S. We are just too large and our population way too diverse culturally to have effectively combated Covid-19 via herd immunity and/or extreme proactivity for which we simply neither have the resources nor the infrastructure. Initially Great Britain tried to follow the Swedish model but quickly learned that because their nationals also come from many other countries, such strategy would've proven to be more fatal on many lives. Incidentally, even the Swedes may have to abandon the herd immunity strategy if their own transmission, infection and death rates over burden their infrastructure.
There are a few issues with option #2.
1) it's a novel virus very similar to SARS, but as yet, with quite a few unknowns. One of these is the disturbing news of patients who've recovered and survived, but with damage (some possibly permanent) to various vitals like the lungs, kidneys, liver, heart and testicles. Yes, original SARS had the ability to leave some male survivors sterile. It seems there may be a possibility with SARS-Cov2 as well.
2) lasting immunity. We don't know how long the immunity lasts after recovering from this.
Fairly early in the pandemic (Feb) a Japanese woman was hospitalized, sick and testing positive for the SARS-Cov2 virus. She was treated, recovered, then released after finally testing negative on 2 consecutive days. About a week later, she was back in the hospital sick, and once again tested positive for SARS-Cov2.
Was this genuinely a reinfection? A relapse? An error due to false negatives from tests with a low confidence rate? We don't know. What we do know is that unlike some viruses, where after recovery, a healthy person will have permanent immunity, the 4 common hCoVs (human Coronaviruses) that cause about 15% of common colds, do not confer permanent immunity. The immunity only lasts for a few months to about 3 years.
3) letting it burn through as quickly as possible vs flattening the curve: as I've already posted before, with a highly contagious novel virus like this, it spreads like wildfire and can easily overwhelm not just the healthcare system, but every other aspect of our society as well, resulting in the cascading collapse, which results in significantly more damage.
Those who were paying attention might have noticed that early on, Trump appeared to be in the camp to just let it burn to preserve the economy. If you're curious as to what changed his mind (and the UK's, who held out for the 'let it burn' option a little longer than we did, before changing tracks) and where the "2.2 million deaths in the US" came from, here's one of the papers that Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx used to change his mind.
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/im...-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf
Are they worth it? I am no judge of that as beauty and value is in the eye of the beholder but I would not pay anywhere close to 1K for a Shiv, maybe because I got lucky to have a friend who scored one for me years ago plus I have had enough of them to go through my hands to decide that I only need ONE. Again my personal opinion which ought to count for ZIP.
