So I am getting cautiously optimistic here despite futures going limit down as I write this and Fremont closing up earlier in the night:
Contagion: While R0 estimates are high ,there seems to be some sort of herd immunity already present. Some individuals seem resistant to acquiring the infection. Three items from what I have seen so far:
- The infection rate on Diamond princess is quite low at 20% given centralized HVAC, and how close the passengers were to each other before it was quarantined. One of the Americans on this trip, the radio station owner from California tested positive while his wife did not, despite being in close contact.
- There was a picture of the patients who got infected on the bus. Interestingly, the person next to the carrier was good. And people sitting further away and one who got on 30 mins after were infected. Tells me that while its highly contagious, and potentially travels by air, it cannot infect a majority of people.
- There was the reply tweet from Elon a few hours ago, replying to an article about how the Israeli noble laureate arrived at this conclusion by looking at the Infection rate in Wuhan, which is around 3% from memory
- More clues from a study upthread on how folks of a specific blood group have worse odds and this is with a high p value
Given the above, I think UKs estimate of 70-80% of the population acquiring it eventually are absurdly high even if some amount of hygiene and social distancing is practiced
Testing: There is the ability to rapidly scale up testing if not for the bureaucracy around who is allowed to do what. Between ELISA, RT-PCR, and antibody tests, it is possible to setup a mechanism where a quick test (ELISA?) with high sensitivity albeit low specificity can be coupled with a RT-PCR test to rapidly screen large number of people. Scaling this if not for the red tape sounds feasible. The tests are cheap and RT-PCR machines are widespread. Even these machines are not that expensive (Most expensive high throughput RT-PCR machines seem to top out at 100k). The reagents seem to be ~$5 a pop. While it may take time to scale up, I think we will have more than adequate testing in a month.
I am sure Elon is thinking of potentially buying enough of these tests and have employees go through screening every week or so. In the big scheme of things this is a small expense, if this can make the case for the facilities to be reopened. Realistically, Lab techs and Nurses may be in short supply rather than materials in a 4-8 week timeframe
Drugs: Seeing many candidates here - Hydroxychloroquin + azithromycin, Hydroxychloroquin + the HIV antiviral, Remdesivir, all seem to be promising therapies. Even if there are complications, and only an 80% effective rate, this should drop the IFR to seasonal flu levels.
Social distancing has become a thing at least in the neck of my woods, and that should naturally slow down some of this. Italy seems to be a worst case scenario for a developed country. While US totally botched up the response, I think there is a lot of reason for optimism. Especially if there is enough data to show use of any of the drugs above can stop a patient from transitioning to a critical condition, we may be able to avoid the run on ventilators and ICU beds.
Feel free to shoot my theories down. I am just a dilettante who knew nothing about epidemics, drugs, tests, or anything else healthcare related, before this pandemic broke.
