Long-haul pandemic
(Pandemic Diary - day 22)
From my journal: 20 March 2020 (Friday)
The chart we’ve been using to show why it’s important to “flatten the curve” and keep the rate of infection under the capacity of the the system to deal with it is an oversimplification, and the new chart I was just looking at shows a harsher reality.
In the old chart, the case load either spikes, or it stays low for a longer period and then goes away. I’m not sure if that old chart had a time frame across the bottom or not, but I know I was at least thinking of it in terms of weeks, and only days ago I was saying that we’d surely be on the far side of the situation by August (and therefore Eastern States 100 would surely be safe).
But the new chart shows that it’s not that simple, and not nearly that fast.
The curve only flattens for as long as the isolation efforts last, and then spikes whenever the quarantine is lifted. The spike is not quite as high, but it’s still there, and the only way to prevent that, to keep the curve under the capacity line, would be to keep the quarantine for a much longer period, like 18 months or longer. Now I’m not nearly as optimistic about life being back to normal by August, about having Eastern States, about a lot of things.
Of course this assumes that we prevent the spike in the first place, and I guess if I’m more realistic in my expectations for the effectiveness — and durability — of the measures we’re taking, I’ll realize that they are likely to be leaky enough that we’ll spike anyway. That will mean more deaths, probably many more, but it will also mean a quicker return to “normal” life.
The truth is that until there’s a vaccine, nearly the entire population is vulnerable to infection, and the sooner we all get it and either die or recover, the sooner it will be over. China is past the peak now, in the period of a couple months. Italy will soon be through the peak of their spike, maybe in an even shorter period.
I think the measures we’re taking are going to prove to be too little, and maybe too late, and the spike, while maybe delayed and blunted a little bit, is still going to come, and it will probably come before long.
So I guess what I’m doing is talking my way back from the long-term view I started with, giving myself the more comforting thought that this will not last that long and that we really might be on the other side of this by August.
The bottom line, though, is that there’s no way to know right now, and the right answer is to not bank on any particular scenario, try to be prepared for all of it and try to be flexible and accepting of the fact that flexibility is the only real way to be prepared.