This flattening of the curve is most likely due to California's stay at home order. California was the first state to issue the order in its 9 Bay Area counties. Professor John Swartzberg, a professor of infectious diseases at UC Berkeley said that the immediate shelter in place saved California from the worst projected outcomes.
Although the curve is flattening in California, the shelter in place should not be lifted for another month or so. The"bending" of the curve indicates that the rate of new cases per day are decreasing. But because it is also "stretching," the number of new cases per day remains constant. It will be extremely crucial this month to continue social distancing in order to flatten the curve even more.
Questions:
1. Should we lift the shelter in place at all before a vaccine is available?
2. Do you believe governor Newsom and the state of California reacted well to the virus, or should they have reacted differently/sooner?
3. At what point do you think the shelter in place should be lifted?
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8 comments:
Okay yikes, so the issue is that if we open up the shelter in place even after the curve has hit low enough that is per se "within the range" there is definitely a high possibility of another wave coming in since people will love to go outside and be in large crowds. So far Wuhan is at that high-risk position. Moreover, when Liberty University reopened its school after their spring break, multiple students reported that they had felt sick or tested positive for the virus...so there is a lot of uncertainty and fear to reopen the entire country. Physicians and researchers say that since COVID-19 acts like the flu, the virus will stop spreading as quickly in the heat and that the shelter in place will be lifted; however, there could be another wave in the fall...Finding a vaccine would be the ultimate, best option but that takes 12-18 months. There are promising treatments such as the blood transfusion of COVID-19 antibodies (which Johns Hopkins came up with and is in the approval process from the FDA) from healthy to patients who are part of high-risk categories (older folks, people with immune problems), but having nationwide tests and then a vaccine might be the solution.
- Srimaye Samudrala
Like Srimaye said, it is a lengthy process to develop a vaccine, it is illogical to completely wait for the vaccine is made before lifting the shelter in place. Also, it is still difficult to ensure that everyone takes the vaccine, especially due to financial costs and accessibility in America. There will also be resistance from anti-vaccine supporters, even though Covid-19 has demonstrated its severity as a worldwide epidemic. I think it was appropriate for Governor Newsom to enact the shelter in place but I think it would've been better for schools to be shut down sooner. Aragon was one of the last high schools in the neighboring area to shut down, even though children are known to be carriers and schools are definite areas of easy infection. Nevertheless, the shelter in place is helping slow the spread of Covid-19. I think it'd be better if people were better informed about the virus as well, because people appear to be very frantic and their actions reflect this state of mind (no cleaning supplies, toilet paper, etc.). Although it is a difficult situation, with the right state of mind and informed of how to prepare for the virus, I think that everyone could be better adjusted to the quarantine.
I think if the shelter in place is proving to be effective in slowing the spread of Covid-19, then it's a pretty good idea to keep it going until we can get a vaccine out to the public. However, many people are affected by the shelter in place and are struggling to make ends meet. I think that if there is some sort of compromise that can be made so people can keep their jobs/be compensated while maintaining something of a shelter in place, we would be able to adjust and continue better. I personally don't know whether they should've acted faster or not. But what we do know is they acted at a time that allowed us to prevent the spread, so kudos to them.
The prospects of a vaccine are still a while away. While it would be ideal to keep this shelter in place until that time, it is not very probable. Our economy is falling dramatically especially as production slows. The unemployment rates are rising like crazy, and there are many people struggling financially, as they live paycheck to paycheck. Besides the drastic differences, people are just going crazy at home. The main issue is once they say we are all clear, no one is going to be sitting at home and that can cause another wave to hit which could possibly be worse than this one currently. We need 50% of the population to be immune for herd immunity to work, and right now its at about 3-4%. So I don't have an answer as to when we should open, but I do think that closing the schools, no matter how sad it is, was a really good idea when they did it because it definitely slowed the spread.
First of all, it is fantastic the the curb for California has lowered and has been doing a somewhat great of a job keeping the infected at a low. The shelter in place was definitely a great idea and has saved thousands from actually contracting the virus. WIthout a doubt, the shelter in place was very surprising and has had a lot of us in shock, but in the long run it has saved thousands of lives. Also I believe that a shelter in place until a vaccine is discovered is a fantastic way to limit the spread of the virus. However, it is horrible for a large majority of California's population as many people will be required to work to thrive during this pandemic and a lot of people would simply just lose their minds. A vaccine to be found takes a long strenuous amount of time, and getting that vaccine passed will take months. Many people will be laid off their jobs and the economy will fall down until it barely hits rock bottom. At the same time, if the government raises the shelter in place too early, everyone will go out on that day and everyone will be in danger of catching the virus, thus continuing the cycle for another couple months. The coronavirus has definitely been a problem that has changed millions of lives and I hope that we can all get past this issue.
I feel like governor Newsome and the state of California (and the entire U.S.) should have reacted sooner to the virus. It is not a coincidence that South Korea could lower the curve far faster than the United States. Establishing shelter in place was definitely the correct step to flattening the curve. With social distancing in place, the amount of people contracting the disease will stay constant rather than grow exponentially. Therefore, scientifically, we shouldn’t lift the shelter in place at all before a vaccine is available. However, because we are human and need to continue with our lives at some point, the laws will be lifted before a vaccine is found. This means that the government must find another way to keep the virus from spreading. One way could be, as Grace said above, to have people be more informed of the virus and its effects. Because right now, many Americans are not taking the virus seriously enough.
I think that Governor Newsom reacted very well to the virus, especially in how he made sure smaller steps were taken in the lead up to the lock down (like the shelter in place orders many counties implemented), so that residents of California were able to acclimate to social distancing and hopefully have a better understanding of the seriousness of the situation. I believe that a (slow) reopening can take place once the daily death count in California has gone down to 0 for a least a few days, just to be safe. A vaccine could take 18 months at the least, so I don't think it would be wise to stay under lock down for that long, especially when a lot of people are being hit hard financially from the pandemic.
While I understand that having a shelter in place until a vaccine for COVID is available isn't exactly feasible, I still feel like our shelter in place is necessary. Until we get no new cases for a significant amount of time I do not think our government should lift the order. This is because in many countries where the curve had flattened and the order for shelter in place was lifted, there has been a new wave of COVID-19 cases. And in the case of America, where shelter-in place orders were already so slow to get implemented, the second wave might just repeat what happened during the initial infection. So as of right now, even with the so called "bending of the curve" there is much more at risk if we end the shelter in place order. Also when the shelter in place order is ending, it should be a much more gradual "reopening" of society that just letting people bustle out. Perhaps implementation of a curfew of some sort might be advisable.
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