COVID-19 is successfully spreading in countries which have taken these measures [“tell people to stay home if they have those symptoms”] and other more extreme measures
How true is this? I haven’t delved in that closely, but my impression is that a big part of what’s been successful in containing the spread in places like Hong Kong and mainland China has involved identifying & isolating people as soon as they show symptoms.
When they identify a person with symptoms, they certainly isolate that person, but they also do contact tracing. Standard practice is to tell everyone who’s interacted with an infected person to self-quarantine for 14 days, even if they aren’t symptomatic. If that happens soon enough and is thorough enough, it can in principle prevent all presymptomatic transmission.
Yeah, I agree that contact tracing & testing/quarantining contacts is good, and that presymptomatic transmission is possible.
It looked to me like you were claiming that the hypothesis “stopping all symptomatic transmission is sufficient to prevent the number of COVID-19 cases from curving upwards” has been tested by some countries’ measures and found to be false, and I am questioning that apparent assertion.
How true is this? I haven’t delved in that closely, but my impression is that a big part of what’s been successful in containing the spread in places like Hong Kong and mainland China has involved identifying & isolating people as soon as they show symptoms.
When they identify a person with symptoms, they certainly isolate that person, but they also do contact tracing. Standard practice is to tell everyone who’s interacted with an infected person to self-quarantine for 14 days, even if they aren’t symptomatic. If that happens soon enough and is thorough enough, it can in principle prevent all presymptomatic transmission.
Yeah, I agree that contact tracing & testing/quarantining contacts is good, and that presymptomatic transmission is possible.
It looked to me like you were claiming that the hypothesis “stopping all symptomatic transmission is sufficient to prevent the number of COVID-19 cases from curving upwards” has been tested by some countries’ measures and found to be false, and I am questioning that apparent assertion.