“If, at some point in the future, we have the same number of contagious people, and are not at an appreciable fraction of group immunity, it will at that point again be a solid decision to go into quarantine (or to extend it). ”
I think for many people the number of infections at which this becomes a good idas has increased as we have more accurate information about the CFR and how quickly realistic countermeasures can slow down an outbreak in a given area, which should decrease credence in some of the worst case scenarios many were worried about a few months ago.
I agree completely. However, I think the amount it has gone up is critical here. A lot of the countermeasures and increased preparation are linear countermeasures against an exponential threat—maybe a region that could previously only handle 1000 ICU patients can now take care of 2000, but if R0 is significantly above 1 (lets say 1.5) this only buys you about one and a half week. I think this topic deserves its own entire post at some point, and I didn’t want to get bogged down in details in the section on “What doesn’t change”, but if the true rule is “if under X circumstances in March it was smart to go into lockdown, it is November smart to go into lockdown 2 weeks after seeing X” my conclusions are still the same.
I might write that full post sometime on this and more back-and-forth, if people are interested. I made serious concessions to brevity above.
“If, at some point in the future, we have the same number of contagious people, and are not at an appreciable fraction of group immunity, it will at that point again be a solid decision to go into quarantine (or to extend it). ”
I think for many people the number of infections at which this becomes a good idas has increased as we have more accurate information about the CFR and how quickly realistic countermeasures can slow down an outbreak in a given area, which should decrease credence in some of the worst case scenarios many were worried about a few months ago.
I agree completely. However, I think the amount it has gone up is critical here. A lot of the countermeasures and increased preparation are linear countermeasures against an exponential threat—maybe a region that could previously only handle 1000 ICU patients can now take care of 2000, but if R0 is significantly above 1 (lets say 1.5) this only buys you about one and a half week. I think this topic deserves its own entire post at some point, and I didn’t want to get bogged down in details in the section on “What doesn’t change”, but if the true rule is “if under X circumstances in March it was smart to go into lockdown, it is November smart to go into lockdown 2 weeks after seeing X” my conclusions are still the same.
I might write that full post sometime on this and more back-and-forth, if people are interested. I made serious concessions to brevity above.