The diagram with the red line is from Ferguson et al, and is labelled “Surge critical care bed capacity” in their paper.
For all of those reasons, I think your prescription is alarmist.
Why? If we follow a “Flatten the Curve” approach we will take significant casualties as well as significant economic damage. Flatten the curve in Ferguson et al assumes that lockdown lasts until September. The strategy that I endorse is to zero out the curve and eradicate the disease, and I think that some people could be back at work in 6 weeks if we do that, albeit with certain restrictions on travel and events. I would have to look at this a bit more, but it seems to me that an eradication plan will be much less economically costly.
Yes, GJP is predicting 326,000 dead in expectation in the US alone. But I think a large input to that is people rationally expect that if it gets that bad there will be a massive lockdown that lasts for a long time. Lockdowns and deaths are two different costs we are paying, we want to minimize the sum of human plus economic costs.
Yes, the diagram is based on waiting another full month—April 20 - before starting any interventions to reduce this, and assuming an Rp of 2.2 or 2.4 until then. That’s not happening, because they’ve already started much of the proposed interventions, and given that, the curve will already be far lower.
And “flatten the curve” can and will be used as an interim strategy if it is ineffective—this paper assumes that they would have 6,000 people in ICUs before anyone starts asking whether they should start more.
Thanks for your comment, David.
The diagram with the red line is from Ferguson et al, and is labelled “Surge critical care bed capacity” in their paper.
Why? If we follow a “Flatten the Curve” approach we will take significant casualties as well as significant economic damage. Flatten the curve in Ferguson et al assumes that lockdown lasts until September. The strategy that I endorse is to zero out the curve and eradicate the disease, and I think that some people could be back at work in 6 weeks if we do that, albeit with certain restrictions on travel and events. I would have to look at this a bit more, but it seems to me that an eradication plan will be much less economically costly.
Yes, GJP is predicting 326,000 dead in expectation in the US alone. But I think a large input to that is people rationally expect that if it gets that bad there will be a massive lockdown that lasts for a long time. Lockdowns and deaths are two different costs we are paying, we want to minimize the sum of human plus economic costs.
Yes, the diagram is based on waiting another full month—April 20 - before starting any interventions to reduce this, and assuming an Rp of 2.2 or 2.4 until then. That’s not happening, because they’ve already started much of the proposed interventions, and given that, the curve will already be far lower.
And “flatten the curve” can and will be used as an interim strategy if it is ineffective—this paper assumes that they would have 6,000 people in ICUs before anyone starts asking whether they should start more.