Best COVID-19 Reporting So Far.
No joke! I finally found a REALLY good article here.
What was interesting about the article was the inclusion of these two statements:
Granted. These aren't the words of the author, but as with most posts, a lot of what is said has been curated. These points are absolutely factual.
Though, I don't think that these statements actually support Sweden's position (and given the title of the article, another reason why I think it is a good article). Unless their position is to kill as many Swede's as possible.
I mean, I'm sitting here wondering why countries are bothering with a "reopening strategy" while they still have cases. And this first statement is exactly the problem. You can either go the Sweden route and throw your citizens under the proverbial bus, or you need to ride this out until the infection is gone. There is no middle ground. There will be a second wave if you relax restrictions while there are still infections an no herd immunity or vaccine. Period.
This doesn't mean that Sweden's approach is the worst strategy either. Which is why the second statement is actually true as well. If you relax the restrictions, the cases will pick back up. Especially compared to what they would have been without relaxing the restrictions. But, no one really knows how quickly or severe it will be. And we also don't really know what the long term impacts of these restrictions will be either.
For what it is worth, outside of the title, the article also doesn't draw conclusions at the end. Which is refreshing. And it compares rates, not in terms of absolute numbers either.
The worst part of this disease is really that second statement. That no one knows. The high rate of asymptomatic and mild cases makes it near impossible to truly guess at the real infection rate. We haven't done sufficient testing yet, anywhere really, to get the full picture. And "sufficient testing" isn't really plausible anywhere.
Sufficient testing, to get a true sense of the current impact and rate of spread would require testing double digit percentages of the population for both anitbodies and the virus itself over a period of weeks.
Ideally, if you could test say, the entire population of Toronto, once a week, every week, for 3-4 weeks, you'd be onto something.
Basically, you need 100% of a large enough, diverse enough population tested multiple times. And then you would start to get a better understanding.
What was interesting about the article was the inclusion of these two statements:
"What's the strategy of the other countries?" he asked. "It [herd immunity] was already the only thing that will eventually stop this, unless there is a vaccine in time, which is quite unlikely.
"The truth is that no one, no one in Sweden, no one elsewhere either, knows what the best strategy is. Time will tell."
Granted. These aren't the words of the author, but as with most posts, a lot of what is said has been curated. These points are absolutely factual.
Though, I don't think that these statements actually support Sweden's position (and given the title of the article, another reason why I think it is a good article). Unless their position is to kill as many Swede's as possible.
I mean, I'm sitting here wondering why countries are bothering with a "reopening strategy" while they still have cases. And this first statement is exactly the problem. You can either go the Sweden route and throw your citizens under the proverbial bus, or you need to ride this out until the infection is gone. There is no middle ground. There will be a second wave if you relax restrictions while there are still infections an no herd immunity or vaccine. Period.
This doesn't mean that Sweden's approach is the worst strategy either. Which is why the second statement is actually true as well. If you relax the restrictions, the cases will pick back up. Especially compared to what they would have been without relaxing the restrictions. But, no one really knows how quickly or severe it will be. And we also don't really know what the long term impacts of these restrictions will be either.
For what it is worth, outside of the title, the article also doesn't draw conclusions at the end. Which is refreshing. And it compares rates, not in terms of absolute numbers either.
The worst part of this disease is really that second statement. That no one knows. The high rate of asymptomatic and mild cases makes it near impossible to truly guess at the real infection rate. We haven't done sufficient testing yet, anywhere really, to get the full picture. And "sufficient testing" isn't really plausible anywhere.
Sufficient testing, to get a true sense of the current impact and rate of spread would require testing double digit percentages of the population for both anitbodies and the virus itself over a period of weeks.
Ideally, if you could test say, the entire population of Toronto, once a week, every week, for 3-4 weeks, you'd be onto something.
Basically, you need 100% of a large enough, diverse enough population tested multiple times. And then you would start to get a better understanding.
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