Is there a reason for 1.3 per day? This seems very fast (like the beginning of the outbreak before we were taking any containment measures).
If the old strain is R=1 then we expect the new strain to be say R=1.65. This would mean (given generation time of 6.5 days) that the 1.3 would change to1.08.
Each 2 days in your analysis would be equivalent to about a week in the 1.08 model.
Yeah, you’re right. 1.3 was the right constant for Covid in March because of a combination of not being locked down and having more and more tests. This was my attempt to make a direct comparison, but maybe the right way to make that comparison would be to say “if R=1.65 (which I’ll trust you that it leads to a constant of 1.08), we will react about X days slower than if we started from scratch.”
What is X? The answer is about 60 (two months). On the one hand, that’s a lot more than the 2-3 weeks above; on the other hand, it’s less scary because R is lower.
I get the impression that the US response is best modelled on how much action individuals choose to take based on how scared they feel / how fed up they are with COVID restrictions.
In the UK I think people’s response is generally more directly linked to the government’s rules and guidance (with a fair bit of going slightly beyond the rules and a little bit of completely ignoring them).
In the latter case things can be put in place before the 60 day delay (for instance Scotland didn’t have many cases of the new strain but took drastic action despite that because they knew it would grow quickly). In the former case I think your description here is a good model of the response—we could slow it down by reacting early but we probably won’t.
Is there a reason for 1.3 per day? This seems very fast (like the beginning of the outbreak before we were taking any containment measures).
If the old strain is R=1 then we expect the new strain to be say R=1.65. This would mean (given generation time of 6.5 days) that the 1.3 would change to1.08.
Each 2 days in your analysis would be equivalent to about a week in the 1.08 model.
Yeah, you’re right. 1.3 was the right constant for Covid in March because of a combination of not being locked down and having more and more tests. This was my attempt to make a direct comparison, but maybe the right way to make that comparison would be to say “if R=1.65 (which I’ll trust you that it leads to a constant of 1.08), we will react about X days slower than if we started from scratch.”
What is X? The answer is about 60 (two months). On the one hand, that’s a lot more than the 2-3 weeks above; on the other hand, it’s less scary because R is lower.
Yes, that was my conclusion too.
I get the impression that the US response is best modelled on how much action individuals choose to take based on how scared they feel / how fed up they are with COVID restrictions.
In the UK I think people’s response is generally more directly linked to the government’s rules and guidance (with a fair bit of going slightly beyond the rules and a little bit of completely ignoring them).
In the latter case things can be put in place before the 60 day delay (for instance Scotland didn’t have many cases of the new strain but took drastic action despite that because they knew it would grow quickly). In the former case I think your description here is a good model of the response—we could slow it down by reacting early but we probably won’t.