Since I missed my usual Friday Covid-landmark blog, I thought I'd do a second blog. I think my streak of Friday blogs go all the way back to our self-isolation in February, so it is a shame to have broken it.
What has this seven day period brought? The world's daily increase in the numbers of cases and deaths seem to have stabilised, but it isn't dropping. It is rather incredible and it would be interesting to know how this is possible. The majority of the affected world being locked down shouldn't really allow it to keep going with 90,000 cases a day. With almost all social and commercial interactions suppressed, there shouldn't be a way for cases to sustain what is essentially the same rate as before the lock down, but yet there are very few countries on the path to elimination, and fortunately New Zealand, Australia and South Korea are all pretty close to it.
There are some articles recognising the patchwork inconsistent strategy of Australia, which looked messy at first, has reigned in the outbreak while preserving normality by a degree. Doing a "black and white" analysis, they might have stumbled on a better degree of social distancing than the strict lock-down in New Zealand. That is not to say the foolish pundits criticising the New Zealand approach have any merit to say that we have been too heavy-handed. When we went into lock-down, there were few successful suppressions of the outbreak to reference and it is a good thing that different countries try different things, even if there might be some failures. But there is room for individual characteristics in each experiment. Covid-19 might spread in any weather, but warmer, drier, more outdoors-inclined countries may have a greater advantage. There is every chance that the Australian strategy might have failed in New Zealand as the cooler, moister climate would keep people indoors earlier and windows shut. Australia might end with lower cases per capita and deaths per capita, but then our deaths are blighted by the failure in Rosewood Resthome, which makes up over half of our fatalities.
How the real satire that are the United States of America has not yet descended into chaos deserves some consideration. They are racking up the cases and the deaths. And even before cases have consistently gone down, they're loosening restrictions in some states. It would be too easy to say that this will permit the outbreak to continue and burn on - but it is still an experiment of sorts. If Australia could drag its numbers down with more moderate controls in a hot, dry climate, perhaps Texas might enjoy the same success. Either way, their hopes of keeping it under 60,000 deaths is out the window. Their cases increased a third and their deaths by 70% in the week. 2,000 to 3,000 deaths are reported each day. As New York's blaze runs out of wood, the other states are manning up the bodybags.
Fingers crossed for all concerned.
2 comments:
Among the many groups in the USA demanding loosening of the restrictions, I heard the Las Vegas major was offering for her city to be a "control group" for testing the effect of removing all restrictions!
I heard that, too. Then the interviewer, Anderson Cooper I think, asked her to clarify and she backed off perhaps realising she was essentially saying that she didn't mind putting her constituents in harm's way. Every experiment needs a control group, though.
The funny thing is that there are plenty of places which were "incidental" control groups up to a poin - namely the places that were seeded with the virus early, unbeknownst to them, and kept operating until the crisis became impossible to ignore. Taken up to that point, you can see what happens in a control group with normal social and working interactions with an infectious disease. All those "control groups" then started to take control of their fate and stopped being control groups. To be a real control group you have to follow through...
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