
Ask HN: Pandemic – What's gonna happen next? - tcgv
I&#x27;m curious on what&#x27;s your outlook for the coronavirus pandemic.<p>From the information I&#x27;ve been following recently a vaccine is likely coming out only next year, until then it seems to me that there are only two ways for controlling the spreading of the virus:<p>1) Social isolation &#x2F; quarantine, like many (most?) of us are going through right now<p>2) Mass infection followed by mass recovery &#x2F; immunization of a relevant part of the population<p>As much as the first approach saves more lives, it&#x27;s hard for me to see how it&#x27;d bring us back to business as usual any time sooner than when the covid-19 vaccine comes out.<p>The second approach would only be viable, without putting too much pressure to the healthcare system, if it were possible to expose only low risk groups first, in a controlled manner, maintaining a degree of social isolation with high risk groups until the vaccine is available.<p>I guess my question becomes: How are people expecting things to start looking normal by mid-year while the vaccine is still so far ahead? Do you believe the reduction of infected cases in conjunction with relaxed social isolation and hygiene measures are sustainable for &quot;re-opening the economy&quot;?
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samizdis
Much as this may seem like sitting on the fence, I would suggest that even
with the considerable data we have collated so far, we do not know enough to
predict outcome or outlook. For instance, a BMJ article was posted earlier [1]
which, if you overlook its many valid caveats, suggested that Covid-19 might
well be far more widespread than generally imagined. Until we know the answer
to just that one question, it seems that speculation about outcome is idle or
fanciful.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22770263](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22770263)

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tcgv
Surprising info from that thread's article indeed, if confirmed:

> A total of 130 of 166 new infections (78%) identified in the 24 hours to the
> afternoon of Wednesday 1 April were asymptomatic (...)

> China is rigorously testing arrivals from overseas for fear of importing a
> fresh outbreak of covid-19.

> But let’s just say they are generalisable. And even if they are 10% out,
> then this suggests the virus is everywhere. If—and I stress, if—the results
> are representative, then we have to ask, ‘What the hell are we locking down
> for?’

Thanks for sharing.

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samizdis
There has been much debate/controversy over a paper published recently
suggesting that perhaps half of the UK population has already been infected
with Covid-19. The popular press here went mad over it; you can get a
reasonably good overview from an opinion piece in The Guardian from March 26:
[https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/26/virus-...](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/26/virus-
infection-data-coronavirus-modelling)

Again, until this sort of huge unknown is properly addressed, I would be
reticent to speculate on outlook.

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tcgv
You're right. The degree of uncertainty is still too high, we don't even have
a figure on the percentage of asymptomatic cases. Lockdown/quarantine measures
right now seem in line with the old saying "hope for the best, prepare for the
worst".

The evolution of this disease over the course of the next months will tell us
who's right and who's wrong on these varying estimates.

------
Hackbraten
The world needs to quickly reduce infection rates to a low enough level so
that infected cases can be quarantined and traced individually again. Then
slowly re-open things for the non-infected.

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tcgv
The problem, I believe, is that until we have a vaccine there's always the
risk of new infection waves popping up from asymptomatic cases in high density
population centers.

That's why I'm unsure about how slow this "re-open" would have to be, and how
long it would take for things to start looking "normal" again.

