What probability do you assign that half a year from now you’ll think that we really, really should have closed most borders for the duration of the peak to avert more variants sweeping the globe?
The idea was that if it’s sustainable for a month, we might notice the death rate suddenly going up different amounts in 3 countries, accompanied by the sound of Overton windows breaking. You don’t think a sufficiently lethal and salient pandemic would have everyone declare the atmosphere a no-fly zone at turretpoint?
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.
What probability do you assign that half a year from now you’ll think that we really, really should have closed most borders for the duration of the peak to avert more variants sweeping the globe?
Basically zero. This isn’t sustainable in a way that could work.
The idea was that if it’s sustainable for a month, we might notice the death rate suddenly going up different amounts in 3 countries, accompanied by the sound of Overton windows breaking. You don’t think a sufficiently lethal and salient pandemic would have everyone declare the atmosphere a no-fly zone at turretpoint?
They key phrase in your comment is “sufficiently lethal”, and COVID ain’t.
Yet! But “the ~90% of the world that haven’t been infected yet won’t spawn lethal variants” is the kind of expert prediction that I can buy. :)
On what data do you base the estimate that 90% of the world population haven’t been infected by the novel coronavirus by now?
I googled “covid cases worldwide” for ~3% and thought “probably a bunch of cases are never tested”. Do you think even more people have been infected?
In US, the CDC estimates 145 million infections to date, which is close to 45% of population.
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.