Is this a good place to put questions that I want answered?
Is there some reliable source on the triggers for quarantining one’s self? Both immediate triggers (when x happens, I will not leave the house again until y happens), and warning signs (when z happens, I’m going to leave the city, in preparation for quarantine).
The US currently has 15 confirmed COVID-19 infections but what we want to know is the number of infected at large.
Let’s try to estimate this number.
Around 3M Chinese visit the US annually not counting other foreigners or American citizens who travel to China and return.
Before US Borders were closed to China travelers the virus was already prevalent for at least ~14 days during which infected people traveled freely.
That implies at least 115,068 visitors who had recently been to China entered the US from Jan 9th — Jan 23rd. To guess how many may have been infected I noted that China’s initial quarantine area encompasses 60M people which is 1/23rd of China’s population.
Therefore ~5,000 suspected persons arrived in the US from affected areas. Assuming the infection rate was around 0.5%, we can guess there were around 25 infected people at large by January 23rd. But which 25 of the 5,000??
Note: some infected may continue to come in from China but only if they are US permanent residents or citizens (and they are forcibly quarantined in military installations). The US does not currently limit arrivals from Thailand or Singapore however, as opposed to Israel, which was the first to announce such limits today.
In an assertive scenario the US government would track down all 5,000 suspected infections above as well as anybody they interacted with and put them all in quarantine.
I have heard no reports in that vein and believe it’s likely not the case. On the other hand, there have been reports of dangerous mistakes, such as incorrectly removing an infected person from a hospital in San Diego.
Even worse, we can’t tell how many people are now infected but don’t have a reason to suspect they have it. They may have been around an asymptomatic infected person who came from Wuhan or touched a contaminated surface.
If in fact COVID-19’s “asymptomatic R0” is over 1, a single infected person would start an epidemic cascade. I think it is highly probably this is happening now but that we are in the early stages of the exponential curve and therefore the problem is invisible.
Furthermore, because most cases are mild, infected persons may be misdiagnosed or not seek treatment. The virus may go through 5–10 growth cycles before we realize a city outbreak is underway.
Once it’s clear there is an outbreak in say Columbus, OH, it’s hard to say how many people the local infected persons have already spread the disease to and it will be hard to find them all.
That’s one reason why the CDC instructed medical professionals across the nation to report cases of flu-like symptoms to monitoring centers and also released a diagnostic test for COVID-19 that it’s distributing to 115 labs. However, the test was faulty and for now samples are still going to Atlanta, which means results will be delayed.
Sadly, a faster acting, reliable test that could be delivered to thousands of labs will take months to develop.
My take is that if the number of total infected (not merely confirmed infected) in a city exceeds a few hundred, that city is in trouble.
With 25–100 infected people at large who may be anywhere in the US we should be very concerned.
When I would take action
If my city had more than 15 confirmed cases, I would take 2nd measures as noted below
If my city had more than 20 confirmed cases, which grew to 30 cases or more in less than 10 days, I would take 3rd measures as noted below
Precautions: 1st, 2nd and 3rd Measures
I’m currently based in San Francisco, a mere few blocks from UCSF, where two confirmed COVID-19 patients, diagnosed in Santa Clara, were transferred for treatment.
1st Measures (I’ve already taken these)
Buy six weeks worth of food in case self-quarantine is necessary
Cease attending local group events such as gyms
Cease using public transportation which I would otherwise do every other day. Instead I use my car or Lyft/Uber
Purchase $350 worth of masks for self and wife. Haven’t found a good solution for daughter
Avoid air travel to East Asia
Minimize air travel and when traveling, carry Lysol wipes to disinfect seating area, avoid using the toilet, wear a mask for the duration of travel. Avoid eating. Drink only from my own bottle.
2nd Measures
Expand food stocks to 4 months
Cease all air travel
Cease eating out at restaurants
3rd Measures
Self-quarantine for 2 weeks to observe whether things are static or worsen. If infected numbers are static, revert to 2nd Measures, otherwise keep self-quarantine.
My answer is an attempt to do something similar. Note that I think strictly speaking you can do without self-quarantining: my impression is that if you go outside and aren’t within 2 metres of other people, you don’t have a serious risk of aerosol infection, and if you can manage to avoid touching stuff (or wear gloves, refrain from touching your face, and throw them out upon getting inside) then you avoid contact transmission. So going on hikes seems fine to me, and means (a) you don’t go stir-crazy (b) you get some exercise.
I actually weakly recommend against that for the immediate future – there’s some features I plan to implement that’ll give related questions more visibility (I might prioritize getting them done soon), but right now they don’t work that well in practice.
I chatted with Ray, I think that related questions is a good fit for this. People will primarily find the related questions via this post at the current time, which actually makes it pretty good for spamming with questions. Eli, I’d be pro you submitting a related question (it goes where the answer box is).
(Although I now read more carefully and see that you were pro “submitting a related question”, which is maybe not the same as asking the same question twice.)
Is this a good place to put questions that I want answered?
Is there some reliable source on the triggers for quarantining one’s self? Both immediate triggers (when x happens, I will not leave the house again until y happens), and warning signs (when z happens, I’m going to leave the city, in preparation for quarantine).
This article attempts to answer this: https://medium.com/@adamgries/how-to-decide-when-to-take-precautionary-action-about-coronavirus-covid-19-and-what-to-do-an-78d8bf231ebb
Quoting from it:
My answer is an attempt to do something similar. Note that I think strictly speaking you can do without self-quarantining: my impression is that if you go outside and aren’t within 2 metres of other people, you don’t have a serious risk of aerosol infection, and if you can manage to avoid touching stuff (or wear gloves, refrain from touching your face, and throw them out upon getting inside) then you avoid contact transmission. So going on hikes seems fine to me, and means (a) you don’t go stir-crazy (b) you get some exercise.
I guess ideally there would be separate models of:
when to refrain from public transit
when to refrain from visiting stores
when to refrain from visiting work
when to refrain from being outside at all
etc.
Given the status of the related questions feature, yes.
You could ask a related question!
I actually weakly recommend against that for the immediate future – there’s some features I plan to implement that’ll give related questions more visibility (I might prioritize getting them done soon), but right now they don’t work that well in practice.
I chatted with Ray, I think that related questions is a good fit for this. People will primarily find the related questions via this post at the current time, which actually makes it pretty good for spamming with questions. Eli, I’d be pro you submitting a related question (it goes where the answer box is).
I copied and pasted my question here.
(Although I now read more carefully and see that you were pro “submitting a related question”, which is maybe not the same as asking the same question twice.)