
Coronavirus: South Korea closes schools again after biggest spike in weeks - finphil
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-52845015
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yongjik
Misleading title. _Some_ schools in South Korea were closed again, when they
found themselves in the middle of new hot spots (either some student/teacher
got infected or the area had too many patients). The nation, as a whole, is
still "on schedule" for gradually reopening schools. Of course that's not
without controversy, but we can't just postpone everything indefinitely...

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tinus_hn
A strange decision given that the schools had nothing to do with these
infections.

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rurban
Those reactions of officials are not very scientific all over. They don't read
the current papers, reports, studies. They've only learned that flu is
distributed by kids, and apply this logic to the latest flu outbreak. Well,
they are as confused as the press, which knows even less. And the press is
hysterizing the parents, which does have a significant impact on common
health.

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Tepix
What makes you think that?

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lbeltrame
Current evidence points that children and young kids are the least susceptible
to SARS-CoV-2, as outlined in this editorial[1]. But the governments and the
press still treat it like it's the flu on that regard.

[1]
[https://adc.bmj.com/content/early/2020/05/19/archdischild-20...](https://adc.bmj.com/content/early/2020/05/19/archdischild-2020-319474)

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Tepix
> "South Korea endured one of the worst outbreaks of the virus earlier this
> year"

By what criteria is BBC rating this outbreak? That seems grotesque.

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nabla9
There is no such thing as winning against covid-19 until there is vaccine or
enough people have achieve immunity by getting sick.

It's constant vigilance and restrictions. The only question is how light and
well targeted they can be.

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lbeltrame
I disagree. Drugs (given the number being tested, perhaps one or two
candidates can emerge) can make the disease manageable and buy enough time for
a vaccine without causing any more lockdowns.

Besides, closing schools in light of available evidence is... questionable, or
moved not by science, but by the precautionary principle.

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doliveira
Honestly those drugs would have to have a pretty high efficacy to change the
pandemic course by themselves. If they had, it would probably already be
pretty clear even in preliminary studies.

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lbeltrame
The time of administration matters as well. A lot of the early studies were
made in high-severity, hospitalized cases. At that point, the results were
mediocre if not totally ineffective (lopinavir/ritonavir, for example).

It might be better early on, but there is yet a lack of trials for early
administration of drugs. Stuff like the RECOVERY trial in the UK will be
pivotal in telling which treatments work and which don't.

Also I don't mean only repurposed drugs (aside the very debated HCQ, there's
ivermectin that is worth at least looking at), but also new molecules made
specifically to fight the disease (there are quite a few slated to start
clinical testing this summer).

Then "underdogs", like favipiravir, which apparently cuts the hospital stay
time in half, but the few studies published aren't that great (no placebo,
control is standard of care which means everything and nothing).

I would also add that the lack of standardized protocols hurts a bit the
interpretation of the studies. Take heparin for example, which is believed to
drastically cut mortality (although the lone study published is full of
confounding factors): different hospitals in different countries have
different protocols of administration, further complicating things and making
difficult to understand proper dosage, etc.

