Omicron isn’t like that. So your proposal is to do this pre-emptively, before the threat arises, and sustain that forever? Yeah, not happening, and not going to feel bad about not doing it.
It wouldn’t have to be forever. It would on the mainline be the about one-month duration of the peak, after which one would see that there are no new catastrophic variants. If there actually is a new catastrophic variant, then one can keep borders closed around that country for the… half a year? it takes to develop/distribute vaccines/treatment.
I’m confused what you think this accomplishes—by the time you know to close the border the new variant is already in your border. Even if a new variant arose during the month you’re closed, you probably open up before you know it exists, and lose anyway.
Yes I’m not talking about reacting to a new variant by closing, only about closing in advance. If a variant will spread across borders months before it is discovered because we can’t afford to sequence every case, then I agree this doesn’t work. I assume we don’t have a poolable test that excludes known variants.
Omicron isn’t like that. So your proposal is to do this pre-emptively, before the threat arises, and sustain that forever? Yeah, not happening, and not going to feel bad about not doing it.
It wouldn’t have to be forever. It would on the mainline be the about one-month duration of the peak, after which one would see that there are no new catastrophic variants. If there actually is a new catastrophic variant, then one can keep borders closed around that country for the… half a year? it takes to develop/distribute vaccines/treatment.
I’m confused what you think this accomplishes—by the time you know to close the border the new variant is already in your border. Even if a new variant arose during the month you’re closed, you probably open up before you know it exists, and lose anyway.
Yes I’m not talking about reacting to a new variant by closing, only about closing in advance. If a variant will spread across borders months before it is discovered because we can’t afford to sequence every case, then I agree this doesn’t work. I assume we don’t have a poolable test that excludes known variants.