midtskogen wrote:The "cure" is the human immune system.
Quarantines and isolation are effective, but also costly. Norway decided to shut down this week after we got several hundred cases with people coming home for ski resorts in Italy and Austria. The schools in Norway had a winter break in three different weeks in February/March depending on county, so different parts of the country now are in somewhat different stages. It took less than a week after the first break was over to see the first signs. Clearly, people's movement is how this spreads. In hindsight the obvious thing would be a temporary travel ban in Europe already a month ago, but would not have been accepted. If that were to be imposed every time there is a risk, the costs would be too high. It's a very difficult choice whether to take drastic action to contain a disease or not. We don't do it for seasonal flu. There is always a risk that a particular seasonal flu has higher than normal mortality and vaccines are ineffective, and when we discover that, it's too late.
So everybody here who can are working from home. I can do >95% of my work from home. Schools are closed, but teachers and pupils are in touch online. The technology of today greatly limits the impact of such drastic action.
In theory this virus could be contained if everybody stays at home for two weeks, and then life can return to normal for symptom free households, and the remaining would have to be quarantined longer.
The American healthcare system, lacking as it is, is completely unequipped to handle this crisis. There isn't even any paid sick or family leave, let alone universal healthcare! A bunch of neanderthals.....
On the bright side looks like the pandemic is subsiding in China, so this looks like a 7-8 week surge. I expect things to return back to normal levels of mediocrity by the end of April.