“Smart action today will prevent the spread of the virus tomorrow,” President Donald Trump said in his March 11 Oval Office address to the nation on the Chinese coronavirus epidemic.
The statement echoes the warnings by disease experts that early action — even of just one day — can have massive payoffs in trying the slow the quiet, unseen spread of a virus from people who do not know they have the virus.
In a test version of the virus spread in China’s Hubei region, “waiting one more day creates 40% more cases! So, maybe, if the Hubei authorities had declared the lockdown on 1/22 instead of 1/23, they might have reduced the number of cases by a staggering 20k,” says a detailed report on Medium.com by a trained disease tracker
“Countries that act fast can reduce the number of deaths by ten,” said author Tomas Pueyo. “And that’s just counting the fatality rate. Acting fast also drastically reduces the cases, making this even more of a no-brainer.”
The disease is spread fast and quietly among many Americans, Pueyo wrote. But the disease spread can be extended, delayed, and slowed down so that the number of Americans who need ventilators to stay alive matches the supply of ventilators:
If we reduce the infections as much as possible, our healthcare system will be able to handle cases much better, driving the fatality rate down. And, if we spread this over time, we will reach a point where the rest of society can be vaccinated, eliminating the risk altogether. So our goal is not to eliminate coronavirus contagions. It’s to postpone them.
The more we postpone cases, the better the healthcare system can function, the lower the mortality rate, and the higher the share of the population that will be vaccinated before it gets infected.
There is one very simple thing that we can do and that works: social distancing.
President Donald Trump, many governors, business groups, and city officials are trying to maximize “social distancing” by shutting down sports, parades, schools, and other public events. On Wednesday night, Trump said:
Young and healthy people can expect to recover fully and quickly if they should get the virus. The highest risk is for [the] elderly population with underlying health conditions. The elderly population must be very, very careful.
In particular, we’re strongly advising that nursing homes for the elderly suspend all medically unnecessary visits. In general, older Americans should also avoid non-essential traveling in crowded areas.
The sooner social distancing begins, the better, said the Medium.com report:
Pueyo continued:
And remember, these are just cases. Mortality would be much higher, because not only would there be directly 40% more deaths. There would also be a much higher collapse of the healthcare system, leading to a mortality rate up to 10x higher as we saw before. So a one-day difference in social distancing measures can end exploding the number of deaths in your community by multiplying more cases and higher fatality rate.
This is an exponential threat. Every day counts. When you’re delaying by a single day a decision, you’re not contributing to a few cases maybe. There are probably hundreds or thousands of cases in your community already. Every day that there isn’t social distancing, these cases grow exponentially.