Does social distancing even matter? Read on...

amother

Saddlebrown

Mon, Apr 20 2020, 3:06 pm

southernbubby wrote:

Those stores have changed their policy here in Monsey and many parks are closed.

Home depot is open. So is walmart. So is Target. Memorial park is open.
The train is running. TOR buses as well.
Checkout MTA svcs...theyre all running.

ora_43

Mon, Apr 20 2020, 3:17 pm

amother [ Fuchsia ] wrote:

I am advocating for opening things up, but limiting the number of people that can be in any contained space at any one time. I am advocating for those who can work from home to continue to do so but for those who can't, to go back to work while wearing masks and for employers to mandate hand washing, temperature checks, whatever it is that will help and make people feel more comfortable. I am advocating for students going back to school, and if not school, then for camps to be open. Unfortunately children with pre-existing conditions cannot go to camp, but healthy children should be able to. I am advocating for the government to release a realistic plan that shows us what we can expect and when instead of just getting on stage, telling us the numbers are down, and then leaving while we remained locked in our homes for an indefinite period of time.

Well then we mostly agree. That's boring.

I would define the things in bold as social distancing. Anything that reduces the natural number of daily interactions we have is social distancing. If my kid goes back to daycare but I'm still working from home and not meeting friends for coffee, that's still social distancing. If my kid goes back to school but with 10 kids in a classroom instead of 25, that's social distancing. Etc.

southernbubby

Mon, Apr 20 2020, 3:22 pm

amother [ Saddlebrown ] wrote:

Home depot is open. So is walmart. So is Target. Memorial park is open.
The train is running. TOR buses as well.
Checkout MTA svcs...theyre all running.

My DIL does our groceries and some stores are only letting in a few at a time but others are pandemonium as usual. Yes, there are trains and buses but my impression is that most stores are closed because they sell non-essentials and places such as Bear Mountain, museums and libraries are still closed. BH, there is still some life out there but people are still catching it so whatever's open is obviously contributing to the spread of the virus.

ora_43

Mon, Apr 20 2020, 3:22 pm

amother [ Saddlebrown ] wrote:

Its all assumptions.

You're right. We don't really know. Even top epidemiologists have made mistakes on this one, in both directions.

But if we're going to make the best possible decisions (which still might turn out to be completely wrong) we have to take realistic worst-case scenarios into account.

Ora in town

Mon, Apr 20 2020, 10:45 pm

Quote:

plotted the rates of new coronavirus infections of the U.S., U.K., Sweden, Italy, Israel, Switzerland, France, Germany, and Spain. The numbers told a shocking story: irrespective of whether the country quarantined like Israel, or went about business as usual like Sweden, coronavirus peaked and subsided in the exact same way

US, UK, Italy, israel, Switzerland, France, Germany and Spain all introduced quite strict social distancing measures.

In all those countries, the rate of increase went slowly down from the moment effective social distancing was introduced.

In Sweden, which is much less densely populate, social distancing was not introduced and rates of increase did not go as low as in countries that introduced effective social distancing. Their death rate per case is much higher than in other countries (ten times that of Israel, with roughly the same number of registered cases), which would indicate that there is a much higher rate of undetected cases.

In Israel and Germany,, the mortality rate per registered case is lowest, but according to studies in Germany, the true infection rate might still be 8 times what is reported...