I agree that our overall response has been poor. We could have done so much more. Even in the best case scenario I think we would have still had some yo-yo effect. Take New Zealand as the gold star example. They did things right and cases zeroed out. They had 100 days of no new cases and then an outbreak hit. They immediately shifted to a pull back of public interaction and ramped up a test and tracing strategy. After the outbreak was contained they removed restrictions.
I would take a 100 day (3 month) yo-yo cycle. We’re running more like 30 or 14 days now, with much less change in reopening.
It WAS the only goal.
You can't compare it to a natural disaster because there is no physical damage to structures.
No homes destroyed, no power outages, no rebuilding whatsoever.
We shut down to control the rate of spread, and that was the only reason most Americans accepted it.
We feared this would get out of control, with bodies piling up, freezer trucks, first line medical workers dead and dying, and unable to support the dead and dying - further snowballing the problem.
People forget what the possible scenario was.
We didn't come remotely close to it - and yes, that was due in part to the measures we enacted which succeeded in keeping the ate of spread to a manageable one.
That was the primary goal, and the main narrative. But, it was not the only goal of controlling a pandemic. In this instance our media inability to hold two thoughts and think beyond the week is literally killing us. More so when people think that was the only goal. Compounded by the federal response acting the same way. Yeah, we broke the peak once, had no follow up and called the game over. To bad it wasn’t even halftime yet. Even in this thread people pointed out that a flattening only goal wouldn’t reduce the total deaths, just spread them out and reduce the cascade impacts. Unless you’re cool with 2+ million deaths, clearly there needed to be more.
I’m sure I could find posters right in this thread with examples of businesses destroyed by the pandemic that need solutions beyond just “isolate for a few more months”. Might as well be destroyed by a hurricane.
Without a vaccine, you can't have low community spread and get back to normal. They are mutually exclusive. Why wasn't NY able to go back to normal after they had low community spread without ending up with high community spread? This virus is nearly impossible to control with the testing and contact tracing you suggest.
It can be spread by people who have no symptoms or very mild symptoms. That does not lend itself to isolation and contact tracing. Well, if you had a non invasive, rapid response DIY test that had extremely high sensitivity and specificity it could work. You'd have to have everybody test themselves before leaving the house every time they left.
The initial restrictions weren't to buy time to implement additional longer term plans. The initial restrictions were to "flatten the curve" and it was implied by the experts that after 15 extended to 47 days to slow the spread, things could move to a phased reopening and any pull back would be on a targeted, very local level. What should the longer term plans have been that didn't involve continuation of the same restrictions?
The vaccine is the only way to reduce spread that doesn't involve preventing people from coming into contact with other people.
Clearly you cannot have free movement between areas with different responses, otherwise they just keep importing more. This just stresses the importance of a national response, which didn’t happen. That with COVID it’s more difficult and expensive doesn’t mean we shouldn’t even try. Another reason a national response was needed, states and localities simply cannot fund it correctly. (Not suggesting we restrict movement between states, but that we need a single nationwide response.)
As above, that was a sticky catch phrase, but never the only goal of pandemic control.
I’ll never understand how people can think flattening was the only goal. An admission that 2+ million dead is fine and not worthy of a goal to reduce that. Just because its hard, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. The federal failure to do more than offer guidance has been doing exactly that, just giving up. While the actions needed, need to be implemented locally, the are only possible with federal coordination and funding.
