Posts: 257
Threads: 39
Joined: Sep 2009
This was the News Hour report on PBS last night:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uE9SZ6paQnk# Watch the segment from 26:50 to 27:30.
Briefly, the doctor was reporting on what was working in cities that are reporting successes in their battle with the virus. Singapore, rather than quarantine everyone that had come in contact with someone that had the virus, instead only imposed quarantine if they had been closer than 6’ for more than 30 minutes.
It may not be as readily spread as we fear. We probably don’t have to worry about casual contact with fellow humans.
Posts: 2,151
Threads: 73
Joined: Mar 2007
I hope it's true, but I will be keeping my distance and some disinfectant handy.
Posts: 785
Threads: 6
Joined: Apr 2012
Not so reassuring news... It is entirely understandable that we all would like to be able to "negotiate" a less onerous next few months of inconvenience with covid-19. But we have to always test these reassuring tidbits against the very real downsides if they don't work quite as well as they were expected to. I found this article very realistic and to the point on what the impact of half-measures (cheating just a little bit) on social distancing can mean:
https://medium.com/@jpsmithalt/hold-the-...231c48ff17
The site requires you to sign up, which may be a nuisance, but here is a short extract from the full discussion:
"Second, although social distancing measures have been (at least temporarily) well-received, there is an obvious-but-overlooked phenomenon when considering groups (i.e. families) in transmission dynamics. While social distancing decreases contact with members of society, it of course increases your contacts with group (i.e. family) members. This small and obvious fact has surprisingly profound implications on disease transmission dynamics.
Study after study demonstrates that even if there is only a little bit of connection between groups (i.e. social dinners, playdates/playgrounds, etc.), the epidemic trajectory isn't much different than if there was no measure in place. The same underlying fundamentals of disease transmission apply, and the result is that the community is left with all of the social and economic disruption but very little public health benefit. You should perceive your entire family to function as a single individual unit;
if one person puts themselves at risk, everyone in the unit is at risk.
