swissaustrian
03-21-2020, 03:20 PM
I am intending to give the following text to some economists and physicians I know as food for thought. Would like to get your input.
Most of the Western world is under almost complete shutdown due to the corona outbreak. The rationale is to slow the spread and protect the health care systems from collapse due to demand at magnitudes over intensive care capacities. There is an urgent need for creative solutions that open up a pathway back to normal life. A sober look at the epidemiological data is a sensible starting point.
1. Some health facts
Corona does NOT compare to the Spanish flu of 1918. Back then, healthy children and young adults were massively overrepresented among the dead. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu#/media/File:W_curve.png)
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/70/W_curve.png
2019/20 corona epidemic deaths have almost exclusively been limited to people with serious pre-existing conditions (hypertension, diabetes, cardiovascular, respiratory, cancer) and very high age. The first 2500 deaths in Italy had 99.2 % pre-existing conditions and an average age of 80.5 years. (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-18/99-of-those-who-died-from-virus-had-other-illness-italy-says) No one under 30 died at all. The life expectancy of Italians is 83.5 years, so the lost years of those dying are fortunately limited. Half of the dead had 3 or more prior illnesses. 70% of the dead Italians and 60% of infected are men.
https://i.imgur.com/6kNOWBk.png
Worst case predictions (https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-150-million-americans-may-get-infected-2020-3?r=US&IR=T) are 70% of populations infected, 2% of those in intensive care and 1% dead. In South Korea (https://www.statista.com/statistics/1095848/south-korea-confirmed-and-suspected-coronavirus-cases/), which has done over 316000 tests, only 3% of all tests were positive. Today's US numbers are showing a positive/negative ratio slightly below 10% (https://www.geelongadvertiser.com.au/news/world/more-than-195000-people-in-the-us-have-been-tested-for-coronavirus/video/330086ecbad2436721cc8d6e12d997ac). Remember, the US is only testing people with symptoms.
2. Economic impact
The estimated impact of the governmental measures on GDP is initially between minus 15-25 % p.a. (https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/20/goldman-sees-an-unprecedented-stop-of-economic-activity-with-2nd-quarter-gdp-contracting-by-24percent.html) and will get worse over time. This is unsustainable and causes very disproportionate opportunity costs, including severe social unrest and shortages.
3. Risk group identification
The virus triggers serious outcomes in a well-defined risk group of a maximum of 1% of the population of very high age and serious pre-existing conditions, ie a severely compromised immune system. This makes targeted measures possible which increases their effectiveness and lowers the need for broad indiscriminative action with extremely harmful side effects.
4. Some ideas to get back to normal life
a. Voluntary reverse quarantine of healthy (non-infected) risk persons
The well-defined risk group could be voluntarily transferred to remote areas like the empty hotels of Las Vegas or the ski resorts of the Alps and isolated until the worst is over. This would actually protect them better than current measures. The other 99% of the population can be gradually released from the stranglehold of house arrests and martial law.
b. Positive labelling of recovered and immune persons
Combined positive anti-body and negative virus testing allows for recovered/immune persons to be cleared and allowed to interact with high risk persons without extreme hygienical precautions. It also eliminates the need to put those cured people under house arrest. They could be issued a forgery proof certificate of non-infectiousness, eg a digital code on their cell phones or a paper certificate similar to a banknote. I know, its a pandora's box for surveilance and ID schemes... But this could be an important trust building mechanism between individuals like an STD test with a sexual partner.
c. Social shaming of non-compliant high-risk people
Unfortunately, some members of high-risk groups have not followed guidelines. They have to be reminded it seems.
d. Opening of borders between countries with similar infection rates
40 miles of truck traffic jam and several days of waiting (https://www.dw.com/en/traffic-chaos-at-german-polish-border-a-threat-to-local-supply-chains/a-52834298) between Poland and Germany makes no sense if the per capita infection rate is similar. It just increases the risk of infection among those in the jam and supply chain disruptions.
e. Changing communication strategy to total transparency: Politicians have to stop the spin and lies. Publish all raw data.
f. Grassroots organization via digital networks
Waiting for governments to come up with sensible solutions is futile. Both solutions and actions need to be developed and organized on a grassroots level. Politicians have to get out of the way. Let’s hope protests are not necessary. People have a natural tendency towards cooperation and reciprocity. They don’t need regulations for that.
Most of the Western world is under almost complete shutdown due to the corona outbreak. The rationale is to slow the spread and protect the health care systems from collapse due to demand at magnitudes over intensive care capacities. There is an urgent need for creative solutions that open up a pathway back to normal life. A sober look at the epidemiological data is a sensible starting point.
1. Some health facts
Corona does NOT compare to the Spanish flu of 1918. Back then, healthy children and young adults were massively overrepresented among the dead. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu#/media/File:W_curve.png)
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/70/W_curve.png
2019/20 corona epidemic deaths have almost exclusively been limited to people with serious pre-existing conditions (hypertension, diabetes, cardiovascular, respiratory, cancer) and very high age. The first 2500 deaths in Italy had 99.2 % pre-existing conditions and an average age of 80.5 years. (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-18/99-of-those-who-died-from-virus-had-other-illness-italy-says) No one under 30 died at all. The life expectancy of Italians is 83.5 years, so the lost years of those dying are fortunately limited. Half of the dead had 3 or more prior illnesses. 70% of the dead Italians and 60% of infected are men.
https://i.imgur.com/6kNOWBk.png
Worst case predictions (https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-150-million-americans-may-get-infected-2020-3?r=US&IR=T) are 70% of populations infected, 2% of those in intensive care and 1% dead. In South Korea (https://www.statista.com/statistics/1095848/south-korea-confirmed-and-suspected-coronavirus-cases/), which has done over 316000 tests, only 3% of all tests were positive. Today's US numbers are showing a positive/negative ratio slightly below 10% (https://www.geelongadvertiser.com.au/news/world/more-than-195000-people-in-the-us-have-been-tested-for-coronavirus/video/330086ecbad2436721cc8d6e12d997ac). Remember, the US is only testing people with symptoms.
2. Economic impact
The estimated impact of the governmental measures on GDP is initially between minus 15-25 % p.a. (https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/20/goldman-sees-an-unprecedented-stop-of-economic-activity-with-2nd-quarter-gdp-contracting-by-24percent.html) and will get worse over time. This is unsustainable and causes very disproportionate opportunity costs, including severe social unrest and shortages.
3. Risk group identification
The virus triggers serious outcomes in a well-defined risk group of a maximum of 1% of the population of very high age and serious pre-existing conditions, ie a severely compromised immune system. This makes targeted measures possible which increases their effectiveness and lowers the need for broad indiscriminative action with extremely harmful side effects.
4. Some ideas to get back to normal life
a. Voluntary reverse quarantine of healthy (non-infected) risk persons
The well-defined risk group could be voluntarily transferred to remote areas like the empty hotels of Las Vegas or the ski resorts of the Alps and isolated until the worst is over. This would actually protect them better than current measures. The other 99% of the population can be gradually released from the stranglehold of house arrests and martial law.
b. Positive labelling of recovered and immune persons
Combined positive anti-body and negative virus testing allows for recovered/immune persons to be cleared and allowed to interact with high risk persons without extreme hygienical precautions. It also eliminates the need to put those cured people under house arrest. They could be issued a forgery proof certificate of non-infectiousness, eg a digital code on their cell phones or a paper certificate similar to a banknote. I know, its a pandora's box for surveilance and ID schemes... But this could be an important trust building mechanism between individuals like an STD test with a sexual partner.
c. Social shaming of non-compliant high-risk people
Unfortunately, some members of high-risk groups have not followed guidelines. They have to be reminded it seems.
d. Opening of borders between countries with similar infection rates
40 miles of truck traffic jam and several days of waiting (https://www.dw.com/en/traffic-chaos-at-german-polish-border-a-threat-to-local-supply-chains/a-52834298) between Poland and Germany makes no sense if the per capita infection rate is similar. It just increases the risk of infection among those in the jam and supply chain disruptions.
e. Changing communication strategy to total transparency: Politicians have to stop the spin and lies. Publish all raw data.
f. Grassroots organization via digital networks
Waiting for governments to come up with sensible solutions is futile. Both solutions and actions need to be developed and organized on a grassroots level. Politicians have to get out of the way. Let’s hope protests are not necessary. People have a natural tendency towards cooperation and reciprocity. They don’t need regulations for that.