Bullshit. We’ve endured worse pandemics before, and we didn’t shut down the whole nation.World
We need an immediate five-week national lockdown to defeat coronavirus in America
Yaneer Bar-Yam, Opinion contributor
USA TODAY OpinionMarch 21, 2020, 11:30 AM EDT
I am an MIT-trained physicist and complexity scientist who studies pandemics. I have warned about global pandemics due to increasing travel for 15 years. I recommended community based monitoring of symptoms to stop Ebola in West Africa in 2014, and it worked. The fastest and even the only way to contain COVID-19 in the United States is a five-week national lockdown.
Closing schools, bars and movie theaters are good measures, but not enough. Our relaxed approach to social distancing is insufficient to stop the exponential growth of COVID-19. Until Americans consistently adopt strong social distancing recommendations — a lockdown — the disease will continue to spread exponentially.
During a five-week national lockdown, federal, state and local authorities would ensure that all Americans stay home except to obtain food and other essentials, access medical care, or do work essential to the functioning of society. Travel would cease: We would close our borders and airports and prohibit all unnecessary travel across state and county (or town) lines within the United States. The U.S. government would have to provide aid to citizens separated from their sources of income and ensure care for vulnerable members of society.
Lockdown would sharply reduce cases
During the first two weeks of a lockdown, infected individuals will either recover from mild cases of COVID-19 at home or seek medical attention for the 14% of cases that are severe. During the third, fourth and fifth weeks, any newly infected family or cohabitants of infected individuals will recover or seek medical attention and their isolation will prevent further spreading. By the end of the lockdown, the number of infections will be a small fraction of what they are now.
The lockdown will give us time to dramatically scale up our supply of COVID-19 test kits and capacity to process them. If we reduce the number of infections using the lockdown and start a massive testing regime in the United States, we can control COVID-19 after five weeks without such extreme social distancing measures. Isolating sick individuals and their immediate contacts will be enough.
The human and economic costs of delaying this lockdown will be staggering. The COVID-19 outbreak has many more cases now than are visible (tip of the iceberg) and they are growing rapidly. Absent sufficiently effective intervention, new cases will increase 1.3 to 1.5 times each day. We had almost 20,000 cases in the United States on Friday, over 5,800 more cases than the previous day. Without a lockdown, in one week there will be about 200,000. In two weeks: 2,000,000. One in seven cases require hospitalization and 5% require ICU care with ventilators to survive. There aren’t nearly enough ventilators available.
The effectiveness of a five-week lockdown will be dramatic — and also entirely predictable.
We know a U.S. lockdown can work because it worked in China. At the height of its COVID-19 crisis in mid-February, China had locked down an estimated 760 milllion people, approximately half of its population. This policy was so successful that Wuhan is now much safer from coronavirus than New York City or Washington, D.C. The few new COVID-19 cases in China now stem from foreign travelers rather than local transmission, and all are safely quarantined.
We know what we have to do. President Donald Trump and our states' governors and local leaders must act now to save millions of lives.
Yaneer Bar-Yam is the founding president of the New England Complex Systems Institute, where he is an expert on pandemics and other complex systems. He is spearheading the effort of over 3,000 volunteers working to stop the outbreak at endcoronavirus.org. Follow him on Twitter: @yaneerbaryam
We need an immediate five-week national lockdown to defeat coronavirus in America
Locking down the country would reduce infections and allow time for massive testing. There will be staggering human and economic costs if we delay.www.yahoo.com
United States Infections and deaths from Coronavirus as of February 29, 2020
Infections: 68
Deaths: 1
United States Infections and deaths from Coronavirus as of March 22, 2020
Infections: 35,000
Deaths: 458
The exponential rise in infections and deaths in just 3 weeks is incredible. Where will the United States be on April 23, 2020 without the lockdown proposed above?
It would be nice to think we could shutdown our economy for 5 weeks and survive as a country, but it is not reality. A 5 week lockdown is a case of the cure being worse than the disease
There is no other option. This is a disaster situation. The priority is survival, not making money. The entire economy will have to be refocused to fighting this war, just like it was during World War II.
I thought this was america not china? why are all of these commies on the side of china?Bullshit. We’ve endured worse pandemics before, and we didn’t shut down the whole nation.World
We need an immediate five-week national lockdown to defeat coronavirus in America
Yaneer Bar-Yam, Opinion contributor
USA TODAY OpinionMarch 21, 2020, 11:30 AM EDT
I am an MIT-trained physicist and complexity scientist who studies pandemics. I have warned about global pandemics due to increasing travel for 15 years. I recommended community based monitoring of symptoms to stop Ebola in West Africa in 2014, and it worked. The fastest and even the only way to contain COVID-19 in the United States is a five-week national lockdown.
Closing schools, bars and movie theaters are good measures, but not enough. Our relaxed approach to social distancing is insufficient to stop the exponential growth of COVID-19. Until Americans consistently adopt strong social distancing recommendations — a lockdown — the disease will continue to spread exponentially.
During a five-week national lockdown, federal, state and local authorities would ensure that all Americans stay home except to obtain food and other essentials, access medical care, or do work essential to the functioning of society. Travel would cease: We would close our borders and airports and prohibit all unnecessary travel across state and county (or town) lines within the United States. The U.S. government would have to provide aid to citizens separated from their sources of income and ensure care for vulnerable members of society.
Lockdown would sharply reduce cases
During the first two weeks of a lockdown, infected individuals will either recover from mild cases of COVID-19 at home or seek medical attention for the 14% of cases that are severe. During the third, fourth and fifth weeks, any newly infected family or cohabitants of infected individuals will recover or seek medical attention and their isolation will prevent further spreading. By the end of the lockdown, the number of infections will be a small fraction of what they are now.
The lockdown will give us time to dramatically scale up our supply of COVID-19 test kits and capacity to process them. If we reduce the number of infections using the lockdown and start a massive testing regime in the United States, we can control COVID-19 after five weeks without such extreme social distancing measures. Isolating sick individuals and their immediate contacts will be enough.
The human and economic costs of delaying this lockdown will be staggering. The COVID-19 outbreak has many more cases now than are visible (tip of the iceberg) and they are growing rapidly. Absent sufficiently effective intervention, new cases will increase 1.3 to 1.5 times each day. We had almost 20,000 cases in the United States on Friday, over 5,800 more cases than the previous day. Without a lockdown, in one week there will be about 200,000. In two weeks: 2,000,000. One in seven cases require hospitalization and 5% require ICU care with ventilators to survive. There aren’t nearly enough ventilators available.
The effectiveness of a five-week lockdown will be dramatic — and also entirely predictable.
We know a U.S. lockdown can work because it worked in China. At the height of its COVID-19 crisis in mid-February, China had locked down an estimated 760 milllion people, approximately half of its population. This policy was so successful that Wuhan is now much safer from coronavirus than New York City or Washington, D.C. The few new COVID-19 cases in China now stem from foreign travelers rather than local transmission, and all are safely quarantined.
We know what we have to do. President Donald Trump and our states' governors and local leaders must act now to save millions of lives.
Yaneer Bar-Yam is the founding president of the New England Complex Systems Institute, where he is an expert on pandemics and other complex systems. He is spearheading the effort of over 3,000 volunteers working to stop the outbreak at endcoronavirus.org. Follow him on Twitter: @yaneerbaryam
We need an immediate five-week national lockdown to defeat coronavirus in America
Locking down the country would reduce infections and allow time for massive testing. There will be staggering human and economic costs if we delay.
United States Infections and deaths from Coronavirus as of February 29, 2020
Infections: 68
Deaths: 1
United States Infections and deaths from Coronavirus as of March 22, 2020
Infections: 35,000
Deaths: 458
The exponential rise in infections and deaths in just 3 weeks is incredible. Where will the United States be on April 23, 2020 without the lockdown proposed above?
It would be nice to think we could shutdown our economy for 5 weeks and survive as a country, but it is not reality. A 5 week lockdown is a case of the cure being worse than the disease
There is no other option. This is a disaster situation. The priority is survival, not making money. The entire economy will have to be refocused to fighting this war, just like it was during World War II.
Forcing businesses to shut down is wrong. Cracking down on people going to parks is wrong. Let people make up their own damned minds. But authoritarian asswipes can never let that happen.
well remember the jim jones statement that if you have no symptoms you have it. Only in a koolaid drinkers mind.World
We need an immediate five-week national lockdown to defeat coronavirus in America
Yaneer Bar-Yam, Opinion contributor
USA TODAY OpinionMarch 21, 2020, 11:30 AM EDT
I am an MIT-trained physicist and complexity scientist who studies pandemics. I have warned about global pandemics due to increasing travel for 15 years. I recommended community based monitoring of symptoms to stop Ebola in West Africa in 2014, and it worked. The fastest and even the only way to contain COVID-19 in the United States is a five-week national lockdown.
Closing schools, bars and movie theaters are good measures, but not enough. Our relaxed approach to social distancing is insufficient to stop the exponential growth of COVID-19. Until Americans consistently adopt strong social distancing recommendations — a lockdown — the disease will continue to spread exponentially.
During a five-week national lockdown, federal, state and local authorities would ensure that all Americans stay home except to obtain food and other essentials, access medical care, or do work essential to the functioning of society. Travel would cease: We would close our borders and airports and prohibit all unnecessary travel across state and county (or town) lines within the United States. The U.S. government would have to provide aid to citizens separated from their sources of income and ensure care for vulnerable members of society.
Lockdown would sharply reduce cases
During the first two weeks of a lockdown, infected individuals will either recover from mild cases of COVID-19 at home or seek medical attention for the 14% of cases that are severe. During the third, fourth and fifth weeks, any newly infected family or cohabitants of infected individuals will recover or seek medical attention and their isolation will prevent further spreading. By the end of the lockdown, the number of infections will be a small fraction of what they are now.
The lockdown will give us time to dramatically scale up our supply of COVID-19 test kits and capacity to process them. If we reduce the number of infections using the lockdown and start a massive testing regime in the United States, we can control COVID-19 after five weeks without such extreme social distancing measures. Isolating sick individuals and their immediate contacts will be enough.
The human and economic costs of delaying this lockdown will be staggering. The COVID-19 outbreak has many more cases now than are visible (tip of the iceberg) and they are growing rapidly. Absent sufficiently effective intervention, new cases will increase 1.3 to 1.5 times each day. We had almost 20,000 cases in the United States on Friday, over 5,800 more cases than the previous day. Without a lockdown, in one week there will be about 200,000. In two weeks: 2,000,000. One in seven cases require hospitalization and 5% require ICU care with ventilators to survive. There aren’t nearly enough ventilators available.
The effectiveness of a five-week lockdown will be dramatic — and also entirely predictable.
We know a U.S. lockdown can work because it worked in China. At the height of its COVID-19 crisis in mid-February, China had locked down an estimated 760 milllion people, approximately half of its population. This policy was so successful that Wuhan is now much safer from coronavirus than New York City or Washington, D.C. The few new COVID-19 cases in China now stem from foreign travelers rather than local transmission, and all are safely quarantined.
We know what we have to do. President Donald Trump and our states' governors and local leaders must act now to save millions of lives.
Yaneer Bar-Yam is the founding president of the New England Complex Systems Institute, where he is an expert on pandemics and other complex systems. He is spearheading the effort of over 3,000 volunteers working to stop the outbreak at endcoronavirus.org. Follow him on Twitter: @yaneerbaryam
We need an immediate five-week national lockdown to defeat coronavirus in America
Locking down the country would reduce infections and allow time for massive testing. There will be staggering human and economic costs if we delay.
United States Infections and deaths from Coronavirus as of February 29, 2020
Infections: 68
Deaths: 1
United States Infections and deaths from Coronavirus as of March 22, 2020
Infections: 35,000
Deaths: 458
The exponential rise in infections and deaths in just 3 weeks is incredible. Where will the United States be on April 23, 2020 without the lockdown proposed above?
STFU
The ONLY things that need to be shutdown are the Demo Rats, Lamestream Media and Deep State.
How Coronavirus Cases in The U.S. Are Going to Explode Out of Nowhere
In a prior report I revealed the spring equinox (March 19) marks the beginning of the earth tilting back towards the sun and an increase solar ultraviolet radiation which results in elevate vitamin D levels in human populations that will abolish coronavirus cases and death. I also indicated quarantines will be counterproductive and force people indoors and further deprive them of life-saving vitamin D.
Ron Klain, the ex-federal EBOLA CZAR, issued a warning that coronavirus cases are going to “explode” in the U.S. On Thursday, March 19, 4,940 new cases were reported. Coronavirus deaths are also predicted to rise precipitously. But here is how this ruse is accomplished.
Buried in the news report is this language: “numbers in the U.S. are rising sharply partly because testing is being more widespread.”
So indiscriminate news reports will sound alarming because news agencies want to capture readership. This parade of irresponsible news reports is anticipated to raise levels of anxiety in the American population at large. The “What do we do now?” panic sets in.
Because there are more cases of coronavirus infection reported with more testing, and because testing produces a high percentage of false positive tests that falsely indicate a person has the disease when they don’t, it will be easy to mislead the public and cause the public to accept draconian community lockdowns. Just the intentional withholding of toilet paper supplies could provoke civilian unrest and cause the public to clamor for troops in the streets to halt civil unrest.
BTW, every human has cancer cells, and we all don't get cancer. shit I wish these uninformed nats would go away.
View attachment 314313
thank you. I would have just hit a thank you, but they took it away.well remember the jim jones statement that if you have no symptoms you have it. Only in a koolaid drinkers mind.World
We need an immediate five-week national lockdown to defeat coronavirus in America
Yaneer Bar-Yam, Opinion contributor
USA TODAY OpinionMarch 21, 2020, 11:30 AM EDT
I am an MIT-trained physicist and complexity scientist who studies pandemics. I have warned about global pandemics due to increasing travel for 15 years. I recommended community based monitoring of symptoms to stop Ebola in West Africa in 2014, and it worked. The fastest and even the only way to contain COVID-19 in the United States is a five-week national lockdown.
Closing schools, bars and movie theaters are good measures, but not enough. Our relaxed approach to social distancing is insufficient to stop the exponential growth of COVID-19. Until Americans consistently adopt strong social distancing recommendations — a lockdown — the disease will continue to spread exponentially.
During a five-week national lockdown, federal, state and local authorities would ensure that all Americans stay home except to obtain food and other essentials, access medical care, or do work essential to the functioning of society. Travel would cease: We would close our borders and airports and prohibit all unnecessary travel across state and county (or town) lines within the United States. The U.S. government would have to provide aid to citizens separated from their sources of income and ensure care for vulnerable members of society.
Lockdown would sharply reduce cases
During the first two weeks of a lockdown, infected individuals will either recover from mild cases of COVID-19 at home or seek medical attention for the 14% of cases that are severe. During the third, fourth and fifth weeks, any newly infected family or cohabitants of infected individuals will recover or seek medical attention and their isolation will prevent further spreading. By the end of the lockdown, the number of infections will be a small fraction of what they are now.
The lockdown will give us time to dramatically scale up our supply of COVID-19 test kits and capacity to process them. If we reduce the number of infections using the lockdown and start a massive testing regime in the United States, we can control COVID-19 after five weeks without such extreme social distancing measures. Isolating sick individuals and their immediate contacts will be enough.
The human and economic costs of delaying this lockdown will be staggering. The COVID-19 outbreak has many more cases now than are visible (tip of the iceberg) and they are growing rapidly. Absent sufficiently effective intervention, new cases will increase 1.3 to 1.5 times each day. We had almost 20,000 cases in the United States on Friday, over 5,800 more cases than the previous day. Without a lockdown, in one week there will be about 200,000. In two weeks: 2,000,000. One in seven cases require hospitalization and 5% require ICU care with ventilators to survive. There aren’t nearly enough ventilators available.
The effectiveness of a five-week lockdown will be dramatic — and also entirely predictable.
We know a U.S. lockdown can work because it worked in China. At the height of its COVID-19 crisis in mid-February, China had locked down an estimated 760 milllion people, approximately half of its population. This policy was so successful that Wuhan is now much safer from coronavirus than New York City or Washington, D.C. The few new COVID-19 cases in China now stem from foreign travelers rather than local transmission, and all are safely quarantined.
We know what we have to do. President Donald Trump and our states' governors and local leaders must act now to save millions of lives.
Yaneer Bar-Yam is the founding president of the New England Complex Systems Institute, where he is an expert on pandemics and other complex systems. He is spearheading the effort of over 3,000 volunteers working to stop the outbreak at endcoronavirus.org. Follow him on Twitter: @yaneerbaryam
We need an immediate five-week national lockdown to defeat coronavirus in America
Locking down the country would reduce infections and allow time for massive testing. There will be staggering human and economic costs if we delay.
United States Infections and deaths from Coronavirus as of February 29, 2020
Infections: 68
Deaths: 1
United States Infections and deaths from Coronavirus as of March 22, 2020
Infections: 35,000
Deaths: 458
The exponential rise in infections and deaths in just 3 weeks is incredible. Where will the United States be on April 23, 2020 without the lockdown proposed above?
STFU
The ONLY things that need to be shutdown are the Demo Rats, Lamestream Media and Deep State.
How Coronavirus Cases in The U.S. Are Going to Explode Out of Nowhere
In a prior report I revealed the spring equinox (March 19) marks the beginning of the earth tilting back towards the sun and an increase solar ultraviolet radiation which results in elevate vitamin D levels in human populations that will abolish coronavirus cases and death. I also indicated quarantines will be counterproductive and force people indoors and further deprive them of life-saving vitamin D.
Ron Klain, the ex-federal EBOLA CZAR, issued a warning that coronavirus cases are going to “explode” in the U.S. On Thursday, March 19, 4,940 new cases were reported. Coronavirus deaths are also predicted to rise precipitously. But here is how this ruse is accomplished.
Buried in the news report is this language: “numbers in the U.S. are rising sharply partly because testing is being more widespread.”
So indiscriminate news reports will sound alarming because news agencies want to capture readership. This parade of irresponsible news reports is anticipated to raise levels of anxiety in the American population at large. The “What do we do now?” panic sets in.
Because there are more cases of coronavirus infection reported with more testing, and because testing produces a high percentage of false positive tests that falsely indicate a person has the disease when they don’t, it will be easy to mislead the public and cause the public to accept draconian community lockdowns. Just the intentional withholding of toilet paper supplies could provoke civilian unrest and cause the public to clamor for troops in the streets to halt civil unrest.
BTW, every human has cancer cells, and we all don't get cancer. shit I wish these uninformed nats would go away.
View attachment 314313
EXACTLY
Opportunistic conditions like CMV and Kaposis Sarcoma produce symptoms only if the individual is immunocompromised.
.
World
We need an immediate five-week national lockdown to defeat coronavirus in America
Yaneer Bar-Yam, Opinion contributor
USA TODAY OpinionMarch 21, 2020, 11:30 AM EDT
I am an MIT-trained physicist and complexity scientist who studies pandemics. I have warned about global pandemics due to increasing travel for 15 years. I recommended community based monitoring of symptoms to stop Ebola in West Africa in 2014, and it worked. The fastest and even the only way to contain COVID-19 in the United States is a five-week national lockdown.
Closing schools, bars and movie theaters are good measures, but not enough. Our relaxed approach to social distancing is insufficient to stop the exponential growth of COVID-19. Until Americans consistently adopt strong social distancing recommendations — a lockdown — the disease will continue to spread exponentially.
During a five-week national lockdown, federal, state and local authorities would ensure that all Americans stay home except to obtain food and other essentials, access medical care, or do work essential to the functioning of society. Travel would cease: We would close our borders and airports and prohibit all unnecessary travel across state and county (or town) lines within the United States. The U.S. government would have to provide aid to citizens separated from their sources of income and ensure care for vulnerable members of society.
Lockdown would sharply reduce cases
During the first two weeks of a lockdown, infected individuals will either recover from mild cases of COVID-19 at home or seek medical attention for the 14% of cases that are severe. During the third, fourth and fifth weeks, any newly infected family or cohabitants of infected individuals will recover or seek medical attention and their isolation will prevent further spreading. By the end of the lockdown, the number of infections will be a small fraction of what they are now.
The lockdown will give us time to dramatically scale up our supply of COVID-19 test kits and capacity to process them. If we reduce the number of infections using the lockdown and start a massive testing regime in the United States, we can control COVID-19 after five weeks without such extreme social distancing measures. Isolating sick individuals and their immediate contacts will be enough.
The human and economic costs of delaying this lockdown will be staggering. The COVID-19 outbreak has many more cases now than are visible (tip of the iceberg) and they are growing rapidly. Absent sufficiently effective intervention, new cases will increase 1.3 to 1.5 times each day. We had almost 20,000 cases in the United States on Friday, over 5,800 more cases than the previous day. Without a lockdown, in one week there will be about 200,000. In two weeks: 2,000,000. One in seven cases require hospitalization and 5% require ICU care with ventilators to survive. There aren’t nearly enough ventilators available.
The effectiveness of a five-week lockdown will be dramatic — and also entirely predictable.
We know a U.S. lockdown can work because it worked in China. At the height of its COVID-19 crisis in mid-February, China had locked down an estimated 760 milllion people, approximately half of its population. This policy was so successful that Wuhan is now much safer from coronavirus than New York City or Washington, D.C. The few new COVID-19 cases in China now stem from foreign travelers rather than local transmission, and all are safely quarantined.
We know what we have to do. President Donald Trump and our states' governors and local leaders must act now to save millions of lives.
We need an immediate five-week national lockdown to defeat coronavirus in America
Locking down the country would reduce infections and allow time for massive testing. There will be staggering human and economic costs if we delay.
United States Infections and deaths from Coronavirus as of February 29, 2020
Infections: 68
Deaths: 1
United States Infections and deaths from Coronavirus as of March 22, 2020
Infections: 35,000
Deaths: 458
The exponential rise in infections and deaths in just 3 weeks is incredible. Where will the United States be on April 23, 2020 without the lockdown proposed above?
World
We need an immediate five-week national lockdown to defeat coronavirus in America
Yaneer Bar-Yam, Opinion contributor
USA TODAY OpinionMarch 21, 2020, 11:30 AM EDT
I am an MIT-trained physicist and complexity scientist who studies pandemics. I have warned about global pandemics due to increasing travel for 15 years. I recommended community based monitoring of symptoms to stop Ebola in West Africa in 2014, and it worked. The fastest and even the only way to contain COVID-19 in the United States is a five-week national lockdown.
Closing schools, bars and movie theaters are good measures, but not enough. Our relaxed approach to social distancing is insufficient to stop the exponential growth of COVID-19. Until Americans consistently adopt strong social distancing recommendations — a lockdown — the disease will continue to spread exponentially.
During a five-week national lockdown, federal, state and local authorities would ensure that all Americans stay home except to obtain food and other essentials, access medical care, or do work essential to the functioning of society. Travel would cease: We would close our borders and airports and prohibit all unnecessary travel across state and county (or town) lines within the United States. The U.S. government would have to provide aid to citizens separated from their sources of income and ensure care for vulnerable members of society.
Lockdown would sharply reduce cases
During the first two weeks of a lockdown, infected individuals will either recover from mild cases of COVID-19 at home or seek medical attention for the 14% of cases that are severe. During the third, fourth and fifth weeks, any newly infected family or cohabitants of infected individuals will recover or seek medical attention and their isolation will prevent further spreading. By the end of the lockdown, the number of infections will be a small fraction of what they are now.
The lockdown will give us time to dramatically scale up our supply of COVID-19 test kits and capacity to process them. If we reduce the number of infections using the lockdown and start a massive testing regime in the United States, we can control COVID-19 after five weeks without such extreme social distancing measures. Isolating sick individuals and their immediate contacts will be enough.
The human and economic costs of delaying this lockdown will be staggering. The COVID-19 outbreak has many more cases now than are visible (tip of the iceberg) and they are growing rapidly. Absent sufficiently effective intervention, new cases will increase 1.3 to 1.5 times each day. We had almost 20,000 cases in the United States on Friday, over 5,800 more cases than the previous day. Without a lockdown, in one week there will be about 200,000. In two weeks: 2,000,000. One in seven cases require hospitalization and 5% require ICU care with ventilators to survive. There aren’t nearly enough ventilators available.
The effectiveness of a five-week lockdown will be dramatic — and also entirely predictable.
We know a U.S. lockdown can work because it worked in China. At the height of its COVID-19 crisis in mid-February, China had locked down an estimated 760 milllion people, approximately half of its population. This policy was so successful that Wuhan is now much safer from coronavirus than New York City or Washington, D.C. The few new COVID-19 cases in China now stem from foreign travelers rather than local transmission, and all are safely quarantined.
We know what we have to do. President Donald Trump and our states' governors and local leaders must act now to save millions of lives.
We need an immediate five-week national lockdown to defeat coronavirus in America
Locking down the country would reduce infections and allow time for massive testing. There will be staggering human and economic costs if we delay.
United States Infections and deaths from Coronavirus as of February 29, 2020
Infections: 68
Deaths: 1
United States Infections and deaths from Coronavirus as of March 22, 2020
Infections: 35,000
Deaths: 458
The exponential rise in infections and deaths in just 3 weeks is incredible. Where will the United States be on April 23, 2020 without the lockdown proposed above?
Bullshit. We’ve endured worse pandemics before, and we didn’t shut down the whole nation.World
We need an immediate five-week national lockdown to defeat coronavirus in America
Yaneer Bar-Yam, Opinion contributor
USA TODAY OpinionMarch 21, 2020, 11:30 AM EDT
I am an MIT-trained physicist and complexity scientist who studies pandemics. I have warned about global pandemics due to increasing travel for 15 years. I recommended community based monitoring of symptoms to stop Ebola in West Africa in 2014, and it worked. The fastest and even the only way to contain COVID-19 in the United States is a five-week national lockdown.
Closing schools, bars and movie theaters are good measures, but not enough. Our relaxed approach to social distancing is insufficient to stop the exponential growth of COVID-19. Until Americans consistently adopt strong social distancing recommendations — a lockdown — the disease will continue to spread exponentially.
During a five-week national lockdown, federal, state and local authorities would ensure that all Americans stay home except to obtain food and other essentials, access medical care, or do work essential to the functioning of society. Travel would cease: We would close our borders and airports and prohibit all unnecessary travel across state and county (or town) lines within the United States. The U.S. government would have to provide aid to citizens separated from their sources of income and ensure care for vulnerable members of society.
Lockdown would sharply reduce cases
During the first two weeks of a lockdown, infected individuals will either recover from mild cases of COVID-19 at home or seek medical attention for the 14% of cases that are severe. During the third, fourth and fifth weeks, any newly infected family or cohabitants of infected individuals will recover or seek medical attention and their isolation will prevent further spreading. By the end of the lockdown, the number of infections will be a small fraction of what they are now.
The lockdown will give us time to dramatically scale up our supply of COVID-19 test kits and capacity to process them. If we reduce the number of infections using the lockdown and start a massive testing regime in the United States, we can control COVID-19 after five weeks without such extreme social distancing measures. Isolating sick individuals and their immediate contacts will be enough.
The human and economic costs of delaying this lockdown will be staggering. The COVID-19 outbreak has many more cases now than are visible (tip of the iceberg) and they are growing rapidly. Absent sufficiently effective intervention, new cases will increase 1.3 to 1.5 times each day. We had almost 20,000 cases in the United States on Friday, over 5,800 more cases than the previous day. Without a lockdown, in one week there will be about 200,000. In two weeks: 2,000,000. One in seven cases require hospitalization and 5% require ICU care with ventilators to survive. There aren’t nearly enough ventilators available.
The effectiveness of a five-week lockdown will be dramatic — and also entirely predictable.
We know a U.S. lockdown can work because it worked in China. At the height of its COVID-19 crisis in mid-February, China had locked down an estimated 760 milllion people, approximately half of its population. This policy was so successful that Wuhan is now much safer from coronavirus than New York City or Washington, D.C. The few new COVID-19 cases in China now stem from foreign travelers rather than local transmission, and all are safely quarantined.
We know what we have to do. President Donald Trump and our states' governors and local leaders must act now to save millions of lives.
Yaneer Bar-Yam is the founding president of the New England Complex Systems Institute, where he is an expert on pandemics and other complex systems. He is spearheading the effort of over 3,000 volunteers working to stop the outbreak at endcoronavirus.org. Follow him on Twitter: @yaneerbaryam
We need an immediate five-week national lockdown to defeat coronavirus in America
Locking down the country would reduce infections and allow time for massive testing. There will be staggering human and economic costs if we delay.
United States Infections and deaths from Coronavirus as of February 29, 2020
Infections: 68
Deaths: 1
United States Infections and deaths from Coronavirus as of March 22, 2020
Infections: 35,000
Deaths: 458
The exponential rise in infections and deaths in just 3 weeks is incredible. Where will the United States be on April 23, 2020 without the lockdown proposed above?
It would be nice to think we could shutdown our economy for 5 weeks and survive as a country, but it is not reality. A 5 week lockdown is a case of the cure being worse than the disease
There is no other option. This is a disaster situation. The priority is survival, not making money. The entire economy will have to be refocused to fighting this war, just like it was during World War II.
Forcing businesses to shut down is wrong. Cracking down on people going to parks is wrong. Let people make up their own damned minds. But authoritarian asswipes can never let that happen.
World
We need an immediate five-week national lockdown to defeat coronavirus in America
Yaneer Bar-Yam, Opinion contributor
USA TODAY OpinionMarch 21, 2020, 11:30 AM EDT
I am an MIT-trained physicist and complexity scientist who studies pandemics. I have warned about global pandemics due to increasing travel for 15 years. I recommended community based monitoring of symptoms to stop Ebola in West Africa in 2014, and it worked. The fastest and even the only way to contain COVID-19 in the United States is a five-week national lockdown.
Closing schools, bars and movie theaters are good measures, but not enough. Our relaxed approach to social distancing is insufficient to stop the exponential growth of COVID-19. Until Americans consistently adopt strong social distancing recommendations — a lockdown — the disease will continue to spread exponentially.
During a five-week national lockdown, federal, state and local authorities would ensure that all Americans stay home except to obtain food and other essentials, access medical care, or do work essential to the functioning of society. Travel would cease: We would close our borders and airports and prohibit all unnecessary travel across state and county (or town) lines within the United States. The U.S. government would have to provide aid to citizens separated from their sources of income and ensure care for vulnerable members of society.
Lockdown would sharply reduce cases
During the first two weeks of a lockdown, infected individuals will either recover from mild cases of COVID-19 at home or seek medical attention for the 14% of cases that are severe. During the third, fourth and fifth weeks, any newly infected family or cohabitants of infected individuals will recover or seek medical attention and their isolation will prevent further spreading. By the end of the lockdown, the number of infections will be a small fraction of what they are now.
The lockdown will give us time to dramatically scale up our supply of COVID-19 test kits and capacity to process them. If we reduce the number of infections using the lockdown and start a massive testing regime in the United States, we can control COVID-19 after five weeks without such extreme social distancing measures. Isolating sick individuals and their immediate contacts will be enough.
The human and economic costs of delaying this lockdown will be staggering. The COVID-19 outbreak has many more cases now than are visible (tip of the iceberg) and they are growing rapidly. Absent sufficiently effective intervention, new cases will increase 1.3 to 1.5 times each day. We had almost 20,000 cases in the United States on Friday, over 5,800 more cases than the previous day. Without a lockdown, in one week there will be about 200,000. In two weeks: 2,000,000. One in seven cases require hospitalization and 5% require ICU care with ventilators to survive. There aren’t nearly enough ventilators available.
The effectiveness of a five-week lockdown will be dramatic — and also entirely predictable.
We know a U.S. lockdown can work because it worked in China. At the height of its COVID-19 crisis in mid-February, China had locked down an estimated 760 milllion people, approximately half of its population. This policy was so successful that Wuhan is now much safer from coronavirus than New York City or Washington, D.C. The few new COVID-19 cases in China now stem from foreign travelers rather than local transmission, and all are safely quarantined.
We know what we have to do. President Donald Trump and our states' governors and local leaders must act now to save millions of lives.
We need an immediate five-week national lockdown to defeat coronavirus in America
Locking down the country would reduce infections and allow time for massive testing. There will be staggering human and economic costs if we delay.
United States Infections and deaths from Coronavirus as of February 29, 2020
Infections: 68
Deaths: 1
United States Infections and deaths from Coronavirus as of March 22, 2020
Infections: 35,000
Deaths: 458
The exponential rise in infections and deaths in just 3 weeks is incredible. Where will the United States be on April 23, 2020 without the lockdown proposed above?
How very Third Reich of you.
This is not a serious enough disease to merit such action
They have been working on this for 4 years.............And found their research for SARs and others fits right in line with this.Please, wait till a wingnut story is vetted.
After 4 years of multi-disciplinary research funded by Israel’s Ministry of Science and Technology in cooperation with Israel’s Ministry of Agriculture, MIGAL has achieved a scientific breakthrough that will lead to the rapid creation of a vaccine against Coronavirus. This possibility was identified as a by-product of MIGAL’s development of a vaccine against IBV (Infectious Bronchitis Virus), a disease affecting poultry, whose effectiveness has been proven in pre-clinical trials carried out at the Volcani Institute. MIGAL has now made required genetic adjustments to adapt the vaccine to COVID-19, the human strain of coronavirus, and is working to achieve the safety approvals that will enable in-vivo testing, enable the initiation of production of a vaccine to counter the Coronavirus epidemic currently spreading throughout the world, which so far has claimed 2,666 lives.
From research conducted at MIGAL, it has been found that the poultry coronavirus has high genetic similarity to the human COVID-19, and that it uses the same infection mechanism, a fact that increases the likelihood of achieving an effective human vaccine in a very short period of time.
Israeli scientists: 'In a few weeks, we will have coronavirus vaccine'
Once the vaccine is developed, it will take at least 90 days to complete the regulatory process and potentially more to enter the marketplace.www.jpost.com
Israeli scientists are on the cusp of developing the first vaccine against the novel coronavirus, according to Science and Technology Minister Ofir Akunis. If all goes as planned, the vaccine could be ready within a few weeks and available in 90 days, according to a release.
But go ahead...........VET........Still gonna take a lot of time to produce...........and who's first.....
I'm confused as to why in 2009 the CDC could develop and approve a vaccine for H1N1 in about 5-months, and today, in 2020 it takes 12-18 months to develop a vaccine. WTF? 2009 H1N1 Flu Pandemic Timeline
April 21 CDC started work on vaccine
September 15th FDA approved vaccine
World
We need an immediate five-week national lockdown to defeat coronavirus in America
Yaneer Bar-Yam, Opinion contributor
USA TODAY OpinionMarch 21, 2020, 11:30 AM EDT
I am an MIT-trained physicist and complexity scientist who studies pandemics. I have warned about global pandemics due to increasing travel for 15 years. I recommended community based monitoring of symptoms to stop Ebola in West Africa in 2014, and it worked. The fastest and even the only way to contain COVID-19 in the United States is a five-week national lockdown.
Closing schools, bars and movie theaters are good measures, but not enough. Our relaxed approach to social distancing is insufficient to stop the exponential growth of COVID-19. Until Americans consistently adopt strong social distancing recommendations — a lockdown — the disease will continue to spread exponentially.
During a five-week national lockdown, federal, state and local authorities would ensure that all Americans stay home except to obtain food and other essentials, access medical care, or do work essential to the functioning of society. Travel would cease: We would close our borders and airports and prohibit all unnecessary travel across state and county (or town) lines within the United States. The U.S. government would have to provide aid to citizens separated from their sources of income and ensure care for vulnerable members of society.
Lockdown would sharply reduce cases
During the first two weeks of a lockdown, infected individuals will either recover from mild cases of COVID-19 at home or seek medical attention for the 14% of cases that are severe. During the third, fourth and fifth weeks, any newly infected family or cohabitants of infected individuals will recover or seek medical attention and their isolation will prevent further spreading. By the end of the lockdown, the number of infections will be a small fraction of what they are now.
The lockdown will give us time to dramatically scale up our supply of COVID-19 test kits and capacity to process them. If we reduce the number of infections using the lockdown and start a massive testing regime in the United States, we can control COVID-19 after five weeks without such extreme social distancing measures. Isolating sick individuals and their immediate contacts will be enough.
The human and economic costs of delaying this lockdown will be staggering. The COVID-19 outbreak has many more cases now than are visible (tip of the iceberg) and they are growing rapidly. Absent sufficiently effective intervention, new cases will increase 1.3 to 1.5 times each day. We had almost 20,000 cases in the United States on Friday, over 5,800 more cases than the previous day. Without a lockdown, in one week there will be about 200,000. In two weeks: 2,000,000. One in seven cases require hospitalization and 5% require ICU care with ventilators to survive. There aren’t nearly enough ventilators available.
The effectiveness of a five-week lockdown will be dramatic — and also entirely predictable.
We know a U.S. lockdown can work because it worked in China. At the height of its COVID-19 crisis in mid-February, China had locked down an estimated 760 milllion people, approximately half of its population. This policy was so successful that Wuhan is now much safer from coronavirus than New York City or Washington, D.C. The few new COVID-19 cases in China now stem from foreign travelers rather than local transmission, and all are safely quarantined.
We know what we have to do. President Donald Trump and our states' governors and local leaders must act now to save millions of lives.
Yaneer Bar-Yam is the founding president of the New England Complex Systems Institute, where he is an expert on pandemics and other complex systems. He is spearheading the effort of over 3,000 volunteers working to stop the outbreak at endcoronavirus.org. Follow him on Twitter: @yaneerbaryam
We need an immediate five-week national lockdown to defeat coronavirus in America
Locking down the country would reduce infections and allow time for massive testing. There will be staggering human and economic costs if we delay.
United States Infections and deaths from Coronavirus as of February 29, 2020
Infections: 68
Deaths: 1
United States Infections and deaths from Coronavirus as of March 22, 2020
Infections: 35,000
Deaths: 458
The exponential rise in infections and deaths in just 3 weeks is incredible. Where will the United States be on April 23, 2020 without the lockdown proposed above?
Not Happening!
I'll keep telling you to. deal with it. shut the fk up.oh for fk sake, shut the fk up
I agree with you to the extent that it is a war, but while COVID-19 is extremely contagious, it is not very deadly.
COVID-19 is not as deadly as the normal flu we see every year, and ignore without even noticing?!
The normal flu season kills 40,000 to 60,000 Americans every year. Burden of Influenza
COVID-19 won't even be as deadly as the swine flu was in 2009, that killed 12,500, under Obama's admin.
Today there are 458 deaths attributed to COVID-19, and that is without any therapies like:
Hydroxychloroquine, chloroquine and other potential COVID-19 treatments explained | TechCrunch
During two of this week's White House briefings, President Trump referred specifically to two potential treatments that have been identified by medicaltechcrunch.com
I'm hoping that your pushing for a 5-week economic shutdown isn't politically motivated just to help Sleazy Joe?
How deadly a pathogen is, is determined by the rate of death for THOSE INFECTED!
The Flu has a death rate of about .1% at its highest. The coronavirus has a death rate of 4.4% based on the latest global infection and death numbers.
So this is 44 more times deadly than the seasonal flu!
PLUS THERE IS NO VACCINE!
IF you allow a pathogen to spread that is 44 times more deadly than seasonal flu, with no vaccine available, you are going to kill millions of people around the world. Lockdown is the response to this problem.
In 2009 with H1N1, there was a vaccine. I know because I received it.
Sorry, not going to.
World
We need an immediate five-week national lockdown to defeat coronavirus in America
Yaneer Bar-Yam, Opinion contributor
USA TODAY OpinionMarch 21, 2020, 11:30 AM EDT
I am an MIT-trained physicist and complexity scientist who studies pandemics. I have warned about global pandemics due to increasing travel for 15 years. I recommended community based monitoring of symptoms to stop Ebola in West Africa in 2014, and it worked. The fastest and even the only way to contain COVID-19 in the United States is a five-week national lockdown.
Closing schools, bars and movie theaters are good measures, but not enough. Our relaxed approach to social distancing is insufficient to stop the exponential growth of COVID-19. Until Americans consistently adopt strong social distancing recommendations — a lockdown — the disease will continue to spread exponentially.
During a five-week national lockdown, federal, state and local authorities would ensure that all Americans stay home except to obtain food and other essentials, access medical care, or do work essential to the functioning of society. Travel would cease: We would close our borders and airports and prohibit all unnecessary travel across state and county (or town) lines within the United States. The U.S. government would have to provide aid to citizens separated from their sources of income and ensure care for vulnerable members of society.
Lockdown would sharply reduce cases
During the first two weeks of a lockdown, infected individuals will either recover from mild cases of COVID-19 at home or seek medical attention for the 14% of cases that are severe. During the third, fourth and fifth weeks, any newly infected family or cohabitants of infected individuals will recover or seek medical attention and their isolation will prevent further spreading. By the end of the lockdown, the number of infections will be a small fraction of what they are now.
The lockdown will give us time to dramatically scale up our supply of COVID-19 test kits and capacity to process them. If we reduce the number of infections using the lockdown and start a massive testing regime in the United States, we can control COVID-19 after five weeks without such extreme social distancing measures. Isolating sick individuals and their immediate contacts will be enough.
The human and economic costs of delaying this lockdown will be staggering. The COVID-19 outbreak has many more cases now than are visible (tip of the iceberg) and they are growing rapidly. Absent sufficiently effective intervention, new cases will increase 1.3 to 1.5 times each day. We had almost 20,000 cases in the United States on Friday, over 5,800 more cases than the previous day. Without a lockdown, in one week there will be about 200,000. In two weeks: 2,000,000. One in seven cases require hospitalization and 5% require ICU care with ventilators to survive. There aren’t nearly enough ventilators available.
The effectiveness of a five-week lockdown will be dramatic — and also entirely predictable.
We know a U.S. lockdown can work because it worked in China. At the height of its COVID-19 crisis in mid-February, China had locked down an estimated 760 milllion people, approximately half of its population. This policy was so successful that Wuhan is now much safer from coronavirus than New York City or Washington, D.C. The few new COVID-19 cases in China now stem from foreign travelers rather than local transmission, and all are safely quarantined.
We know what we have to do. President Donald Trump and our states' governors and local leaders must act now to save millions of lives.
Yaneer Bar-Yam is the founding president of the New England Complex Systems Institute, where he is an expert on pandemics and other complex systems. He is spearheading the effort of over 3,000 volunteers working to stop the outbreak at endcoronavirus.org. Follow him on Twitter: @yaneerbaryam
We need an immediate five-week national lockdown to defeat coronavirus in America
Locking down the country would reduce infections and allow time for massive testing. There will be staggering human and economic costs if we delay.
United States Infections and deaths from Coronavirus as of February 29, 2020
Infections: 68
Deaths: 1
United States Infections and deaths from Coronavirus as of March 22, 2020
Infections: 35,000
Deaths: 458
The exponential rise in infections and deaths in just 3 weeks is incredible. Where will the United States be on April 23, 2020 without the lockdown proposed above?
STFU
The ONLY things that need to be shutdown are the Demo Rats, Lamestream Media and Deep State.
How Coronavirus Cases in The U.S. Are Going to Explode Out of Nowhere
In a prior report I revealed the spring equinox (March 19) marks the beginning of the earth tilting back towards the sun and an increase solar ultraviolet radiation which results in elevate vitamin D levels in human populations that will abolish coronavirus cases and death. I also indicated quarantines will be counterproductive and force people indoors and further deprive them of life-saving vitamin D.
Ron Klain, the ex-federal EBOLA CZAR, issued a warning that coronavirus cases are going to “explode” in the U.S. On Thursday, March 19, 4,940 new cases were reported. Coronavirus deaths are also predicted to rise precipitously. But here is how this ruse is accomplished.
Buried in the news report is this language: “numbers in the U.S. are rising sharply partly because testing is being more widespread.”
So indiscriminate news reports will sound alarming because news agencies want to capture readership. This parade of irresponsible news reports is anticipated to raise levels of anxiety in the American population at large. The “What do we do now?” panic sets in.
Because there are more cases of coronavirus infection reported with more testing, and because testing produces a high percentage of false positive tests that falsely indicate a person has the disease when they don’t, it will be easy to mislead the public and cause the public to accept draconian community lockdowns. Just the intentional withholding of toilet paper supplies could provoke civilian unrest and cause the public to clamor for troops in the streets to halt civil unrest.
great, thanks for asking.I'll keep telling you to. deal with it. shut the fk up.oh for fk sake, shut the fk up
I agree with you to the extent that it is a war, but while COVID-19 is extremely contagious, it is not very deadly.
COVID-19 is not as deadly as the normal flu we see every year, and ignore without even noticing?!
The normal flu season kills 40,000 to 60,000 Americans every year. Burden of Influenza
COVID-19 won't even be as deadly as the swine flu was in 2009, that killed 12,500, under Obama's admin.
Today there are 458 deaths attributed to COVID-19, and that is without any therapies like:
Hydroxychloroquine, chloroquine and other potential COVID-19 treatments explained | TechCrunch
During two of this week's White House briefings, President Trump referred specifically to two potential treatments that have been identified by medical
I'm hoping that your pushing for a 5-week economic shutdown isn't politically motivated just to help Sleazy Joe?
How deadly a pathogen is, is determined by the rate of death for THOSE INFECTED!
The Flu has a death rate of about .1% at its highest. The coronavirus has a death rate of 4.4% based on the latest global infection and death numbers.
So this is 44 more times deadly than the seasonal flu!
PLUS THERE IS NO VACCINE!
IF you allow a pathogen to spread that is 44 times more deadly than seasonal flu, with no vaccine available, you are going to kill millions of people around the world. Lockdown is the response to this problem.
In 2009 with H1N1, there was a vaccine. I know because I received it.
Sorry, not going to.
How is that working for ya?
how many ventilators is that and why didn't the hospitals order more during the last year to have enough in supply? that's on them and their governor for not having contingency plans. shame huh?World
We need an immediate five-week national lockdown to defeat coronavirus in America
Yaneer Bar-Yam, Opinion contributor
USA TODAY OpinionMarch 21, 2020, 11:30 AM EDT
I am an MIT-trained physicist and complexity scientist who studies pandemics. I have warned about global pandemics due to increasing travel for 15 years. I recommended community based monitoring of symptoms to stop Ebola in West Africa in 2014, and it worked. The fastest and even the only way to contain COVID-19 in the United States is a five-week national lockdown.
Closing schools, bars and movie theaters are good measures, but not enough. Our relaxed approach to social distancing is insufficient to stop the exponential growth of COVID-19. Until Americans consistently adopt strong social distancing recommendations — a lockdown — the disease will continue to spread exponentially.
During a five-week national lockdown, federal, state and local authorities would ensure that all Americans stay home except to obtain food and other essentials, access medical care, or do work essential to the functioning of society. Travel would cease: We would close our borders and airports and prohibit all unnecessary travel across state and county (or town) lines within the United States. The U.S. government would have to provide aid to citizens separated from their sources of income and ensure care for vulnerable members of society.
Lockdown would sharply reduce cases
During the first two weeks of a lockdown, infected individuals will either recover from mild cases of COVID-19 at home or seek medical attention for the 14% of cases that are severe. During the third, fourth and fifth weeks, any newly infected family or cohabitants of infected individuals will recover or seek medical attention and their isolation will prevent further spreading. By the end of the lockdown, the number of infections will be a small fraction of what they are now.
The lockdown will give us time to dramatically scale up our supply of COVID-19 test kits and capacity to process them. If we reduce the number of infections using the lockdown and start a massive testing regime in the United States, we can control COVID-19 after five weeks without such extreme social distancing measures. Isolating sick individuals and their immediate contacts will be enough.
The human and economic costs of delaying this lockdown will be staggering. The COVID-19 outbreak has many more cases now than are visible (tip of the iceberg) and they are growing rapidly. Absent sufficiently effective intervention, new cases will increase 1.3 to 1.5 times each day. We had almost 20,000 cases in the United States on Friday, over 5,800 more cases than the previous day. Without a lockdown, in one week there will be about 200,000. In two weeks: 2,000,000. One in seven cases require hospitalization and 5% require ICU care with ventilators to survive. There aren’t nearly enough ventilators available.
The effectiveness of a five-week lockdown will be dramatic — and also entirely predictable.
We know a U.S. lockdown can work because it worked in China. At the height of its COVID-19 crisis in mid-February, China had locked down an estimated 760 milllion people, approximately half of its population. This policy was so successful that Wuhan is now much safer from coronavirus than New York City or Washington, D.C. The few new COVID-19 cases in China now stem from foreign travelers rather than local transmission, and all are safely quarantined.
We know what we have to do. President Donald Trump and our states' governors and local leaders must act now to save millions of lives.
We need an immediate five-week national lockdown to defeat coronavirus in America
Locking down the country would reduce infections and allow time for massive testing. There will be staggering human and economic costs if we delay.
United States Infections and deaths from Coronavirus as of February 29, 2020
Infections: 68
Deaths: 1
United States Infections and deaths from Coronavirus as of March 22, 2020
Infections: 35,000
Deaths: 458
The exponential rise in infections and deaths in just 3 weeks is incredible. Where will the United States be on April 23, 2020 without the lockdown proposed above?
How very Third Reich of you.
This is not a serious enough disease to merit such action
Well, every other country in the world disagrees with you, including the United States, both Republicans and Democrats.
1. Coronavirus 44 more times deadly than seasonal flu
2. No Vaccine unlike vaccine ever year for season flu
3. New York City is running out of Ventilators and other supplies and patients at hospitals there may start to die because the hospitals no longer have the capacity to treat everyone!
If that does not tell you how serious this is, probably nothing out there will.
Bullshit. We’ve endured worse pandemics before, and we didn’t shut down the whole nation.World
We need an immediate five-week national lockdown to defeat coronavirus in America
Yaneer Bar-Yam, Opinion contributor
USA TODAY OpinionMarch 21, 2020, 11:30 AM EDT
I am an MIT-trained physicist and complexity scientist who studies pandemics. I have warned about global pandemics due to increasing travel for 15 years. I recommended community based monitoring of symptoms to stop Ebola in West Africa in 2014, and it worked. The fastest and even the only way to contain COVID-19 in the United States is a five-week national lockdown.
Closing schools, bars and movie theaters are good measures, but not enough. Our relaxed approach to social distancing is insufficient to stop the exponential growth of COVID-19. Until Americans consistently adopt strong social distancing recommendations — a lockdown — the disease will continue to spread exponentially.
During a five-week national lockdown, federal, state and local authorities would ensure that all Americans stay home except to obtain food and other essentials, access medical care, or do work essential to the functioning of society. Travel would cease: We would close our borders and airports and prohibit all unnecessary travel across state and county (or town) lines within the United States. The U.S. government would have to provide aid to citizens separated from their sources of income and ensure care for vulnerable members of society.
Lockdown would sharply reduce cases
During the first two weeks of a lockdown, infected individuals will either recover from mild cases of COVID-19 at home or seek medical attention for the 14% of cases that are severe. During the third, fourth and fifth weeks, any newly infected family or cohabitants of infected individuals will recover or seek medical attention and their isolation will prevent further spreading. By the end of the lockdown, the number of infections will be a small fraction of what they are now.
The lockdown will give us time to dramatically scale up our supply of COVID-19 test kits and capacity to process them. If we reduce the number of infections using the lockdown and start a massive testing regime in the United States, we can control COVID-19 after five weeks without such extreme social distancing measures. Isolating sick individuals and their immediate contacts will be enough.
The human and economic costs of delaying this lockdown will be staggering. The COVID-19 outbreak has many more cases now than are visible (tip of the iceberg) and they are growing rapidly. Absent sufficiently effective intervention, new cases will increase 1.3 to 1.5 times each day. We had almost 20,000 cases in the United States on Friday, over 5,800 more cases than the previous day. Without a lockdown, in one week there will be about 200,000. In two weeks: 2,000,000. One in seven cases require hospitalization and 5% require ICU care with ventilators to survive. There aren’t nearly enough ventilators available.
The effectiveness of a five-week lockdown will be dramatic — and also entirely predictable.
We know a U.S. lockdown can work because it worked in China. At the height of its COVID-19 crisis in mid-February, China had locked down an estimated 760 milllion people, approximately half of its population. This policy was so successful that Wuhan is now much safer from coronavirus than New York City or Washington, D.C. The few new COVID-19 cases in China now stem from foreign travelers rather than local transmission, and all are safely quarantined.
We know what we have to do. President Donald Trump and our states' governors and local leaders must act now to save millions of lives.
Yaneer Bar-Yam is the founding president of the New England Complex Systems Institute, where he is an expert on pandemics and other complex systems. He is spearheading the effort of over 3,000 volunteers working to stop the outbreak at endcoronavirus.org. Follow him on Twitter: @yaneerbaryam
We need an immediate five-week national lockdown to defeat coronavirus in America
Locking down the country would reduce infections and allow time for massive testing. There will be staggering human and economic costs if we delay.
United States Infections and deaths from Coronavirus as of February 29, 2020
Infections: 68
Deaths: 1
United States Infections and deaths from Coronavirus as of March 22, 2020
Infections: 35,000
Deaths: 458
The exponential rise in infections and deaths in just 3 weeks is incredible. Where will the United States be on April 23, 2020 without the lockdown proposed above?
It would be nice to think we could shutdown our economy for 5 weeks and survive as a country, but it is not reality. A 5 week lockdown is a case of the cure being worse than the disease
There is no other option. This is a disaster situation. The priority is survival, not making money. The entire economy will have to be refocused to fighting this war, just like it was during World War II.
Forcing businesses to shut down is wrong. Cracking down on people going to parks is wrong. Let people make up their own damned minds. But authoritarian asswipes can never let that happen.
The country is at war with a deadly pathogen. You should be on the side of the United States and not the pathogen which is killing people. The ideas you express will allow the pathogen to spread more and kill more Americans.
