Closedown vs. No Closedown: Part 2
In Chinese and Japanese cities where the spread of the virus was successfully controlled and the cities reopened, the result has been a second wave of infections (see this).
In contrast in North Florida, the closing of beaches and vacation rentals has resulted in the area being essentially free of virus cases. Based on the Chinese and Japanese experience, we should expect a reopening provoked by impatience to reignite the infection rate.
Possibly health care providers have learned better how to treat the disease and perhaps the supply of protective gear for health care providers has improved and masks have become available for a reopened work place. If not, impatience will stampede us again into crisis.
If we had been prepared with protective gear, with an adequate supply of tests that work, with an understanding of the virus and its treatment, closedowns, other than perhaps in congested cities heavily dependent on public transportation such as New York city, could have been avoided.
The protesters are wrong in thinking that a low death rate of the virus makes it a non-threat. It is certainly possible that many more people have the virus than is known (see this) and that many of the deaths attributed to the virus are results of other causes. The virus is nevertheless dangerous because it is highly contagious, because the severity of cases widely differs without the ability to know in advance the severity of any case, because treatments are uncertain, because people without symptoms spread the virus, and because some recovered people have insufficient antibodies to prevent reinfection.
Business and political interests want the economy reopened, but if we are careless about the process the outcome can be a worse economic and health crisis.
Belief that the best policy is to let the virus spread in order to develop “herd immunity” is undercut by reinfection. There is no herd immunity to common colds or flu. I know people whose winter colds are followed by summer colds and people who get flu every year, flu shot or not.
There are many lessons that we should learn from the virus challenge. One is that a profit-driven health care system results in inadequate structure to deal with a pandemic.
- Source : Dr. Paul Craig Roberts
