Quote:
Originally Posted by Bugeater
I don't know how we can...nothing has changed, it's still out there. I don't see a viable exit strategy right now.
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I wouldn't despair. Look at it this way:
1) We were able to put a pause on the exponential growth of the virus. We prevented the hospital systems from being overrun which substantially decreased fatalities and protected health care workers
2) We know that social distancing works to pause the epidemic
3) We've bought time for the further production of PPE, ventilators, and gained additional clinical insight into the virus and appropriate supportive care
This is not to say that this is over. If we are past the peak we are not yet off the mountain. However, once we ride down the other side of the peak, we can begin opening things up while adhering to practices that will reduce infectiousness. We will have additional time to implement a more robust system of contract tracing, and we will have time to develop and roll out antibody testing to gain a much better understanding of the first wave of the epidemic.
Look at it this way: Americans were asked to sacrifice to save their neighbors, the elderly, those at high risk and the infirm. Experts thought that 50% would adhere to these guidelines and 90% of them did.
We should look upon that as a triumph. If we continue this pattern we will likely save close to 100,000 lives (and perhaps ten times that many had we done nothing).