COVID-19 Shutdown Exit Strategy?

[Chuckanut]

Agreed. We will have tens of millions on the unemployment dole if the economy is shut down for much over 4-6 weeks. The Feds can’t spend enough to prevent it.

The medical experts are in charge at the moment. But, in time the economic harm to people will also become a huge problem. It’s the job of politicians, our elected leaders, to balance medical needs and economic needs.

At some point they must realize that a severely damaged
Economy is also dangerous to the health of the citizens. We need a good economy to generate the vast resources that our medical system requires to keep us healthy.

 

[pb4uski]

... Honestly, in the current environment shutting stuff down is easy compared to deciding when to re-open. ...

Like trying to catch a falling knife, right?

 

[BeachOrCity]

The majority of us on this forum are american. We now have a roadmap of how to beat this. The roadmap is how the Chinese did it.

We have laws and customs in the US which will make it very hard to truly emulate how China beat it.

Time will tell if our partial approach will be effective or not.

...but we do have a roadmap for how to do it.

 

[audreyh1]

The problem in the US as opposed to China as I see it, is they first had a major regional outbreak, which they were able to contain through drastic measures. In the US it was brought by overseas travelers who arrived (or returned in most cases) to locations all over the country. And community spread started undetected in various locations almost simultaneously and then was quickly spread again by the huge amount of domestic travel we have in the US.

 

[MichaelB]

Not picking on steelyman and not a moderator, but thread drift is a thing and a lot of this thread has become generic COVID-19 talk.

I haven't really heard any ideas about how Governors or Mayors who declared shutdowns can re-open business in their states/cities. These politicians have put themselves in no-win situations where they can be accused of re-opening too early/late no matter what they do.

My interest is getting things back to normal as soon as safely practicable, but I'm concerned that major cities/states are shut down with no clear path to resuming normal life.

Waiting months and months for containment/cures/vaccines is untenable when citizens need to pay the bills.

I think no one can say what conditions are needed to begin to lift the isolation orders. If these current measures are successful, by then the spread has been slowed, infrastructure is better adapted to deal with the infected, treatment resources are more widely available, testing has ramped up, treatment protocols and best practices info has been published and are fully in place. My uninformed guess is this could happen 3-6 weeks from now.

The worst case scenario is a partial lifting of the measures even though some of those conditions aren’t in place. In that case, the disease spread picks right back up again, no real sustainable benefit was gained from the limited isolation / shutdown, the infection risk remains high, and a second round of isolation measures us needed. The damage, both in public health and economics, will be much greater.

 

[steelyman]

My interest is getting things back to normal as soon as safely practicable, but I'm concerned that major cities/states are shut down with no clear path to resuming normal life.

It’s an important consideration apart from the immediate medical-oriented crisis.

I’m wondering what my personal “normal” will be and how it will differ from what I thought it was not so long ago. I don’t think I have any decent idea about that and won’t for an indeterminate time.

I feel lucky, as a retiree, to have more flexibility than I did while working and no fear of job loss to add to other problems that have come from (seemingly) nowhere.

 

[gwraigty]

I haven't really heard any ideas about how Governors or Mayors who declared shutdowns can re-open business in their states/cities. These politicians have put themselves in no-win situations where they can be accused of re-opening too early/late no matter what they do.

My interest is getting things back to normal as soon as safely practicable, but I'm concerned that major cities/states are shut down with no clear path to resuming normal life.

Waiting months and months for containment/cures/vaccines is untenable when citizens need to pay the bills.

IMO, they're trying to be proactive instead of reactive, which I agree with. At least no one can accuse them later of not trying hard enough. But I wholeheartedly agree that people can't be kept out of work indefinitely. Already there is talk of having to choose who to try to save, which is what these shutdowns are trying to avoid in the first place.

In Ohio, they're hoping we'll see a peak by early to mid-May. More shutdowns are going to be implemented. Time frames of 30 to 60 days are mentioned for things now being paused/deferred. I suspect that in 2 months, if they believe it's working and we're on the downslope of the surge curve, they may extend closures another 2 weeks or 30 days and revisit then. If we're in a full blown triage situation anyway, I don't know. It's hard to imagine people not being allowed to work for 2 more months, much less it going beyond that.

 

[FIREd]

I feel lucky, as a retiree, to have more flexibility than I did while working and no fear of job loss to add to other problems that have come from (seemingly) nowhere.

I do too. So many people are worried about their job and livelihood at the moment - on top of everything else! For the short term at least, money is not something I have to worry about. Long-term, we'll have to see how the economy rebounds afterwards, as this could impact all of us.

 

[Dalmore]

The world we knew has definitely changed. What the new normal will be, has yet to be determined. I agree, if we don't lift the restrictions in the next month or two, there will be very real shortages of necessities and that will lead to chaos. I just hope that this "cure" isn't worse than the "disease".

 

[Spock]

One malfunction with the shutdown is "one-upmanship" on the part of mayors and governors. Reading the CDC poster, going to a restaurant was a "yellow/cautious" activity but it was still permitted... some restaurants cut their setting capacity in half and put on more wait staff to keep people further apart.


But the power-tripping city/county leaders think they can do even better... "city X cut restaurant hours, we can do better than that by closing them down entirely!" It's like social virtue signaling applied to virus transmission.

The problem is that the exit strategy is going to be made up by each local-yokel entity that came up with their own shutdown plans. As soon as the second wave hits they'll lock it down again even harder.

 

[Chuckanut]

My guess is that by the end of April, the powers-that-be must start rapidly returning to normal economic activity.

The lock-down is a substitute for not being able to quickly and accurately determine who is infected. Since we don't know for certain, everybody gets treated like an infected person and stays at home. This can't last. It either works and starting a month from now we see a start towards big drop off in the spread of CV19 or we go to Plan B.

Watch the unemployment numbers and business failures. Watch sales tax revenues. That will surely scare the heck of out governors (except for Oregon).

Our anointed leaders must prepare for the re-starting now, today, immediately. IMHO, that means developing fast reliable testing so that just about everybody and anybody who goes back out can be tested. Infected? Stay home. Get some extra benefits if they are needed. Not infected? Go back to work and then go shopping.

Note: I hope that a few months from now my pessimism will be proven completely wrong.

 

[dixonge]

I see a lot of mentions of S. Korea, but one key factor I think people are missing is that S. Korea controlled the spread *without* locking down cities or businesses. Testing/isolation/quarantine + social distancing. That's it. And, frankly, that is the now obvious approach. That is the system to emulate. It avoids the problem this thread is addressing of how to know when to remove the lockdowns. Easiest to do when you never locked anything down to begin with.

Lots of things that *all* countries need to fix to make sure future pandemics don't cause the entire world to shut down.

S. Korea - Secret to its Success

 

[Midpack]

IMO, they're trying to be proactive instead of reactive, which I agree with. At least no one can accuse them later of not trying hard enough. But I wholeheartedly agree that people can't be kept out of work indefinitely. Already there is talk of having to choose who to try to save, which is what these shutdowns are trying to avoid in the first place.

In Ohio, they're hoping we'll see a peak by early to mid-May. More shutdowns are going to be implemented. Time frames of 30 to 60 days are mentioned for things now being paused/deferred. I suspect that in 2 months, if they believe it's working and we're on the downslope of the surge curve, they may extend closures another 2 weeks or 30 days and revisit then. If we're in a full blown triage situation anyway, I don't know. It's hard to imagine people not being allowed to work for 2 more months, much less it going beyond that.

Makes sense, but we’ll have chaos (anarchy?) if business closures/social distancing goes on for 30 or especially 60 days. Remember this headline from last May? This gets ugly/desperate fast. The $1000-1200 checks from Uncle Sam doesn’t buy a lot of time.

Nearly 40% of Americans can't cover a surprise $400 expense

 

[Midpack]

I see a lot of mentions of S. Korea, but one key factor I think people are missing is that S. Korea controlled the spread *without* locking down cities or businesses. Testing/isolation/quarantine + social distancing. That's it. And, frankly, that is the now obvious approach. That is the system to emulate. It avoids the problem this thread is addressing of how to know when to remove the lockdowns. Easiest to do when you never locked anything down to begin with.

Lots of things that *all* countries need to fix to make sure future pandemics don't cause the entire world to shut down.

S. Korea - Secret to its Success

Agreed. I still haven’t seen an explanation why S Korea could come up with all the testing they needed and the US is still floundering on testing.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/06/coronavirus-testing-failure-123166

 

[REWahoo]

Agreed. I still haven’t seen an explanation why S Korea could come up with all the testing they needed and the US is still floundering on testing.

This article in the Japan Times does a good job of explaining it: Why South Korea trounced U.S. in race for coronavirus test

 

[RetiredAt55.5]

Agreed. I still haven’t seen an explanation why S Korea could come up with all the testing they needed and the US is still floundering on testing.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/06/coronavirus-testing-failure-123166

I'd chime in with my opinion, but then porky would come out.

 

[MichaelB]

This article in the Japan Times does a good job of explaining it: Why South Korea trounced U.S. in race for coronavirus test

That’s a good article. Here’s another, Science Magazine https://www.sciencemag.org/news/202...-sharply-south-korea-whats-secret-its-success
South Korea built an infrastructure to deal with H1N1 and keep it in place, and very early with coronavirus ramped up testing capability and began testing on a large scale.

 

[gerntz]

The reading I have is that China has peaked and heading in the right direction. They are shutting temporary hospitals they aren't needed. I hope this is a good sign and comfort for people all over the US and world to stay calm and and fear is not the answer to anything.
https://nypost.com/2020/03/11/china-shuts-all-16-temporary-coronavirus-hospitals-in-wuhan/

You believe reports out of China? I don't.

 

[ERD50]

I don't understand the huge significance being placed on this testing. From that article https://www.sciencemag.org/news/202...-sharply-south-korea-whats-secret-its-success

South Korea Population~ 51.47 million (2017)

... South Korea has tested more than 270,000 people, which amounts to more than 5200 tests per million inhabitants

That is ~ 5 people out of 1,000. Say it again: Five people out of one-thousand. And how many positives?

My career was in testing/measuring. Testing/measuring means nothing unless you take a different action based on the results.

So if I test 5 out of 1,000 people, what does that tell me about any particular individual out of the 995? Seems to me, if I am concerned with spreading the disease, I still need to assume that any one of the 995 could be infected, and need to practice the exact same procedures regardless. So what did I gain by testing?

Say 5% of the population was infected at any one time (just an example). That's 50 out of 1,000. What are my chances of getting a positive on any of those 50, if I only test 5 out of 1000? Only 1 chance in 4. So what did we learn?

OK, we can test the ones we suspect, that will have a much higher hit rate. But we can also just enforce isolation for anyone with symptoms, that would accomplish much the same.

It would be different if we had a very effective treatment. Then we could test and treat. And we can test to gauge if we are making progress. But that isn't actively reducing infections.

Heck, even if the US was prepared with 80 million test kits, it would not be feasible to test 1/4 of the population. And after you did, you'd still have 3/4 of the population with infections among them, and they'd still need to practice social distancing.

Seems this "lack of testing in US" is just a big red herring.

Am I missing something? How could this be making a difference based on these numbers/stats?

-ERD50

 

[Aerides]

I don't understand the huge significance being placed on this testing.... And we can test to gauge if we are making progress. But that isn't actively reducing infections.
-ERD50

Right now it would seem the primary benefit is, of course, not to the individual sick person, but to data/society/understanding where we are in this thing. When it becomes clear we're on the downward slope, the end of the other side of the curve, or, getting zero new cases reported - to me that's a great reason to test. For knowledge. And there are many smart people across all these organizations who can derive benefits from that knowledge and prescribe actions. ie: prescribe extra lock down measures and flood more help resources to hot spots.

It would make a difference to those trying to manage society through this to know if there are 1000 cases in a county vs. 3. Maybe not to me, or to you, to sick person 775 or sick person number 8, etc.

 

[ERD50]

I have some thoughts on an exit strategy.

Seems to me, the biggest issue with spreading the disease is with those areas where lots of different people come into contact day after day, and especially where those different people would come into contact with another 'constant' group that contact all those different people day after day. For example, stores, bars, restaurants all have different people coming in each day, and coming into contact with the smaller group of cashiers, wait staff, etc. So people might transmit across each other, and any infected workers might transmit to many people.

So I think it makes sense to limit those sorts of interactions until we have data that says we can go back towards normal.

But take another case - they are doing a big construction project at the school DW works at. Now if (and I said *IF*), this is mostly the same workers coming in and working and going home, and *if* they are not coming into contact with a lot of people outside their group, it would seem that these would be good places to make exceptions, and to limit the harm to the economy.

It's all a matter of degrees, prioritization, and risk/reward. And maybe a group like that would be a good place to prioritize limited testing capability, in order to keep that group safe?

-ERD50

 

[ERD50]

Right now it would seem the primary benefit is, of course, not to the individual sick person, but to data/society/understanding where we are in this thing. When it becomes clear we're on the downward slope, the end of the other side of the curve, or, getting zero new cases reported - to me that's a great reason to test. For knowledge. And there are many smart people across all these organizations who can derive benefits from that knowledge and prescribe actions. ie: prescribe extra lock down measures and flood more help resources to hot spots.

It would make a difference to those trying to manage society through this to know if there are 1000 cases in a county vs. 3. Maybe not to me, or to you, to sick person 775 or sick person number 8, etc.

Right, which is why I included that statement.

But it seems many people are acting as if we had more testing capability, we would have had far fewer deaths to date. I just don't see any evidence or pathway for that to be the case.

I believe those jumping on the bandwagon of criticizing the lack of testing are motivated by other reasons. I'll stop there.

-ERD50

 

[USGrant1962]

Right, which is why I included that statement.

But it seems many people are acting as if we had more testing capability, we would have had far fewer deaths to date. I just don't see any evidence or pathway for that to be the case.

I believe those jumping on the bandwagon of criticizing the lack of testing are motivated by other reasons. I'll stop there.

-ERD50

The daily press briefing just said that there have been 195K tests under the Federal program, with ~19K positive. Seems like a lot of tests to find the 10% that are positive. Note the 195K does not include all the individual hospitals' lab tests.

 

[Ready]

Symptoms for COVID-19 are not showing up in some people until up to 14 days after they are infected. The longer people go carrying the virus without symptoms the more likely they are to infect other people. Early testing would help to identify people who are contagious even if they are asymptomatic, especially if they have been in close contact with other people who are infected.

But we clearly don’t have enough tests to do this, so it’s a moot point for now.

 

[Chuckanut]

I'd chime in with my opinion, but then porky would come out.

YUP. Mine also.