April 17, 2020

Word: The flattening curve

Image may contain: possible text that says 'Here's a very appropriate analogy: "The curve is flattening; we can start lifting restrictions now" = "The parachute has slowed our rate of descent; we can take it off now."' 

1 comment:

Proncias MacAnEan said...

Surely that is what flattening the curve is supposed to do. Flattening the curve isn't about stopping infections; it is just about keeping infections to an amount small enough that hospitals can deal with the sick.

The problem is that flattening the curve is a crappy goal. It just means we are going to get sick over a longer period of time. And we are still going to have about 1% dead instead of 5%-10%.

So if flattening the curve is the goal, then yes we pull back on restrictions so long as we keep the curve flat enough.

The goal should be to be like Taiwan, and get the numbers so low that we can do contact tracing and isolation. The goal should be to drop the curve to zero. And that is going to be all about letting government track everyone.