I just read an extremely powerful article by Tomas Pueyo for enacting as much social distancing as possible, and as soon as possible, in order to mitigate the damage that the coronavirus will eventually cause. It’s a long article, but it presents the science very clearly, and makes the need for immediate action abundantly clear. For the sake of everyone you care about, including yourselves, I urge all of you to read it, and start acting on it as soon as you possibly can. Then pass it on to others, for the sake of all humanity.
The above chart is the 23rd clear and informative chart in the article, each one clearly and lucidly explained. I had never heard of Tomas Pueyo until today, but I’m very thankful that he pulled such a clear presentation of the data together into one place, in a way that almost any layman can understand.
The following explanation is given about what’s going on in the above chart:
In this theoretical model that resembles loosely Hubei, waiting one more day creates 40% more cases! So, maybe, if the Hubei authorities had declared the lockdown on 1/22 instead of 1/23, they might have reduced the number of cases by a staggering 20k.
That’s 20,000 cases of people getting sick, that didn’t need to happen. Acting a day earlier clearly would have reduced things even more.
Trump has taken many steps to sabotage America’s preparedness for this virus, so we no longer have the option of getting an early start on combatting it. This makes it all the more important that we do all we can to act without any further delay, especially in localities, cities and states where there are even a few known cases.
Don’t wait for Trump to lead — we all know he won’t, and neither will Pence. Act now — not tomorrow. Lives are at stake here.
Two more powerful quotes from this powerful article:
The US administration’s ban on European travel is good: It has probably bought us a few hours, maybe a day or two. But not more. It is not enough. It’s containment when what’s needed is mitigation.
Mitigation requires heavy social distancing. People need to stop hanging out to drop the transmission rate (R), from the R=~2–3 that the virus follows without measures, to below 1, so that it eventually dies out.
These measures require closing companies, shops, mass transit, schools, enforcing lockdowns… The worse your situation, the worse the social distancing. The earlier you impose heavy measures, the less time you need to keep them, the easier it is to identify brewing cases, and the fewer people get infected.
This is what Wuhan had to do. This is what Italy was forced to accept. Because when the virus is rampant, the only measure is to lock down all the infected areas to stop spreading it at once.
With thousands of official cases — and tens of thousands of true ones — this is what countries like Iran, France, Spain, Germany, Switzerland or the US need to do.
But they’re not doing it.
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