[rosybox]

It's going to be wiped out far beyond June. Based on the recent models run by UK, the same models that prompted the White House to warn against gatherings of greater than 10 people, the curve doesn't end even without intervention until August. With intervention what we are going through right now could last well into 2021.

[zamfi]

This is not clear. Right now we need lockdown because:

a) We have a large number of infected people (> 10,000) and have no idea who or where they are, because testing sucks.

b) If exponential growth continues (and it would, because we can't isolate all the people who are sick right now), we'll overwhelm hospital facilities and the fatality rate will hit 5% instead of <1%.

BUT

As soon as we clear out a), that kills b) too -- in South Korea they're doing effective contact tracing, testing, and isolation because they have few enough cases. Once we bend the knee of the growth curve, once we get get R0 below 1, we'll have exponential drop-off instead of growth. In 8 weeks, with few enough active cases and robust testing infrastructure, we'll be able to do what China has started doing, and what SK has been doing all along.

Of course, that's assuming we get our act together on lockdown & testing infrastructure. But if we do, we could be out of lockdown by June.

All these folks saying "we need to flatten the curve so that everyone gets it over 41 years!" are extrapolating the wrong data points...

[wwweston]

> "we need to flatten the curve so that everyone gets it over 41 years!"

Is this hyperbole, or is anyone actually saying 41 years?

I haven't done careful math, but eyeballing it, roughly a year (give or take some months) is the longest I'd come up with to keep peak simultaneous cases under 1.5mil.

[vincentmarle]

If this approach works (and it's a big if) you'll still be vulnerable as a society for any flare-ups of the virus. The only long-term solution is to build up herd-immunity and spread it out enough to 50-60% of the population until we have developed a vaccin.

[spookthesunset]

Stop with the doomsday panic. This lockdown thing isn’t going to last more than a few weeks at most—at least without massive social upheaval.

Source: my ill informed opinion, same as yours. same source as yours.

[rosybox]

Doomsday panic? Ill informed opinion? I'm literally looking at the chart used by the White House that comes from the data generated by the UK government. Look for yourself:

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/s...

[coldtea]

>Stop with the doomsday panic. This lockdown thing isn’t going to last more than a few weeks at most—at least without massive social upheaval.

Social upheaval against a "lockdown" becomes a moot point if people you know keep dropping dead.

[ajiang]

This comment will not age well. I'll remind you in 14 days.