HHC2020

[Valentin Albillo]

(03-16-2020 10:09 PM)Gene Wrote:  We are certainly in the thick of events right now.

We're certainly not. The 'thick' will be when there are hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of infected people in Italy, Iran, Spain and perhaps other countries within a month or so from now.

As for 'washing hands frequently' this will certainly help somewhat but will do little to stop the infection from spreading. About the only thing that will work, short of some vaccine or cure being miraculously discovered soon, is mandatorily confining most people at home for at least one month or two.

A similar measure was implemented in Tom Clancy's novel "Executive Orders", released almost 24 years ago. I found it strange at the time I read it that restricting people's movements was the somewhat anticlimatic key but it seems that Clancy was right. Kinda 'deja vu'.

As I understand it, 'miracles' apart there's no way to stop the spreading, even with confinement. What mandatory confinement will achieve is *slowing down* the exponential spreading (say from 2x infected every 3 days to every week), so that you don't have more affected people *at once* than you can deal with, avoiding collapse of both the health system and the economy, and gaining time to try and find a cure.

V.