One of the reasons why America is doing so badly with Covid is that there are too many options still considered and utilized throughout the country. What we need is the focus on a key approach consistently across the country to really have chance to not lose >0.5 million people very soon (and most likely 75% avoidable if there would have been a capable leader with one (and not multiple) strategy). All successful countries (Australia, New Zealand, Vietnam, South Korea, China etc) were successful because they didn’t keep their minds open with multiple options.
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You’ve misunderstood my meaning. We need a uniform national strategy, not the multitude of scattershot strategies that we have now around the country. I’ve said that before, more than once. I’ll leave it to Biden’s pandemic response team to downselect from the multiple options, based on science and their assessment. Until then – and after it’s announced – I hope we’ll all keep an open mind and go along with what they decide is the best path forward, whatever that may be. If people keep their minds closed and refuse to cooperate, starting at the state government level and down to the individual person level, a uniform national strategy will be doomed to failure. I’m sure that places like Australia, New Zealand, Vietnam, South Korea, and China et. al. considered multiple options before deciding on the path to take.
What has worked in other countries may fail in the US, so that has to be kept in mind by the pandemic team. Biden himself has said that he doesn’t see any circumstances under which a national lockdown would be needed, so that option probably will be crossed off the list early on. I have no idea what they’ll finally decide.
I hope you keep an open mind about this!
To be honest end of January will be much too late to have any significant impact on the outcome of the pandemic. We need something now - in two months the vaccine will have a start to have a more significant impact.
Actual most serious epidemiologists have said from the beginning that there are two major options - very significant contact tracing and isolation from the start or lock downs - it’s really not rocket science. It really depends how serious you take the virus from the start of the pandemic - the later you start. contact tracing, the longer the lock downs have to last (or you give up like the US and don’t do anything)
No - if you are serious in enforcing what is necessary to stop pandemic (and yes you might lose voters in the short term) it will also work in the US (again it is not rocket science - it is only a failure of leadership)
Which would be a mistake and I hope he reconsiders (but as I said before it will be anyway too late at end of January)
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There will be no “uniform national strategy.” The folks in rural West Virginia, Compton, Beverly Hills, Riverside, and Montana have nothing in common. Only one of those groups is going to comply with the “science.” The others are going to go about their lives.
You have it backwards. Some follow the science. Others voluntarily contract an infectious mental illness that exponentially increases their chances of getting Covid-19.
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A uniform national strategy isn’t the same thing as uniform local guidelines and controls. The latter is what I think you’re thinking. A strategy is an algorithm: Given local or regional conditions as inputs, the output is specific guidance to enable and maintain local control.
The current national strategy extremes world-wide seem to be (a) a total national lockdown; and (b) the modestly intrusive Swedish approach. I think the Biden strategy, and hopefully espoused by Dr. Fauci, will be scientifically and logistically sophisticated. I’m open-minded to accepting whatever is decided.
Yes, we don’t but should have had a national strategy long ago, and January 2021 is now almost a year too late. But I disagree that implementing a strategy in January will be too late to at least minimize the impact (cases and deaths) of covid in 2021. I personally doubt that there will be a substantial widespread national epidemiological response from vaccine acceptance, distribution, and booster doses until late next summer.
In any event, as long as DT persists in resisting to pass the baton, there won’t be any changes to our current national no-strategy leadership-failure holocaust until Jan 20. That’s bitterly unfortunate but undeniable, I think, even though I agree we urgently need an operable strategy right now.
We still don’t know enough about the disease to fine-tune policies. We know lockdown works. We don’t know of any other approaches that work until you virtually eliminate community spread.
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Succinctly, here’s what could happen in 2021: About 63% of the population in the US (depending on who you listen to) will by then have received both doses of one the approved vaccines. Over the same period of time, perhaps 20% of the rest will gain immunity by infection and recovery. If antibody immunity lasts at least 6 - 8 months, that would bring the total immune population to roughly 70%. Hopefully, 70% would prove be enough for herd immunity, and by September the covid will be largely starved out. Meanwhile, those who opt to get vaccinated (and eventually do) will need to stay healthy. Which brings us full circle back to national strategy during 2021.
Too high - unlikely that we will hit that number. In addition, it looks like that a significant number of asymptotic or mild infection might not lead to longer immunity.
Perhaps. But in addition to those who opt to pass on getting vaccinated, some fraction of the 63% who plan to do so and do their best to stay healthy until then, will nevertheless get sick, bringing the total immune by infection higher.
I’ve also read that the milder the infection, the fewer the number of antibodies, with a commensurately shorter expected duration of immunity, as you said, however. So the scenario I painted for 2021 in my post is an optimistic one.
Except that the T-Cells are sticking around years after the antibodies disappear, according to NIH studies of SARS-Cov-1. Those T-cells also recognized SARS-Cov-2.
So while we may lose initial immunity, our bodies know how to produce antibodies rapidly.
That is the million dollar question - There are a number of papers out regarding T-cell memory and covid virus and they have conflicting scenarios. It will also depend on the mutation rate of covid (which seems to be reasonable low).
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I didn’t mention T-cells, but yes, they’re the hope for truly long-term immunity or at least resistance. The thing about T-cells is that, well, they’re cells. When they reproduce, if they’ve already developed recognition and memory of an invasive entity, they do so with that memory pre-existing in the new cells.
On the other hand, you need to have enough of them to fight off an invasion like a virus, and I would think that, as with antibodies resulting from infection and recovery, the initial number of T-cells would be related to the intensity of the infection and response.
I think that T-cells will ultimately relegate covid-19 to the ranks of the common cold; something that’s always around – and you could catch – but something that rarely results in death and is not a reason for societal controls.
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It doesn’t look one way or the other. We have no idea yet.
There has been a tsunami of studies, opinions, and articles. No, no consensus yet, but it seems logical at least that the weaker the infection the fewer the antibodies, and therefore less resistance to reinfection. I’ve been more inclined to adopt that concept vs parity among all recoveries, i.e., independent of infection severity.
You’re presuing that milder or no symptoms mean “weaker infections.” It could just as easily be the opposite, that they’re a sign of more robust antibody reaponse.
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Yes I have been presuming that, but I understand your point.
In sincerity I think it would be wonderful if “the opposite” turns out to be the case. But right now, I just don’t understand how that could be.
Here is another reason why more Americans will get vaccinated soon - I read that US airlines will follow soon
For those who are unaware of what this pandemic is doing to our medical professionals:
Being on the front lines doesn’t make health workers stronger or safer than anyone else. “I’m not trying to be a hero. I don’t want to be a hero,” Dr. Gilman said. “I want to be alive.”
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