No, I am not talking about finals. A friend emailed me and asked me what I thought about the people who are pushing to reopen…everything. To quarantine or not to quarantine?
I don’t know. We (as scientists) are still learning and trying to figure out what to do. We are investigating the BEST way of doing things, studying what has happened, what is happening. But unfortunately, science is slow, it takes time to do research correctly. I personally know scientists who heard the alert from the WHO in January, took it seriously and started working IMMEDIATELY on what they knew was coming. They are still working. They have made progress but -it just takes TIME to do science right.
What we DO also know is: This too shall pass. Eventually.
What do I mean by that? There are already other coronaviruses out in our world that have been here for a long time. We have already been exposed to these other strains of coronaviruses, and now, due to herd immunity, most of us just get regular garden variety colds. No death, no long term complications. But that is because they have been around a long time and EVERYONE has been exposed, has made some immunity and survived.
We also know that once COVID-19 virus has infected EVERYONE, it will cause just a common cold. How? Once everyone has been exposed (or hopefully vaccinated) for the COVID-19 virus, then the only new cases of infection will occur in the young -who had not had it before. In the young COVID-19 causes mild garden variety common cold symptoms, or no symptoms at all. Just a normal coronavirus infection. But because most of the world has NOT been exposed to this virus we don’t have that herd immunity that can protect those most at risk from dying from this infection. Currently, because we have no pre-existing immunity (have been exposed to the virus before), no antiviral drugs and no vaccine, those who become infected have two options: either survive or die from the infection.
There are too many simply dying from the infection right now. There is no herd.
According to the information for today (April 21, 2020) only about 819,000 people have tested positive and the U.S. population is 328,000,000. That means we don’t have information on over 99% of the population.
Because of that, right now I agree with Dr. Fauci, in that we need to isolate. Until we actually KNOW real numbers about who have been exposed, if recovery prevents reinfection, this leaves MOST of the population at risk. And while you may not die from the infection, we also are starting to see other consequences of infection, such as heart, kidney and even brain damage in people who have had severe infection.
The only way would could effectively open every thing up, would be if we had sufficient testing. IF we had sufficient testing, we could do exactly what people are wanting to do: open up. By testing everyone we would know who has had it and recovered, track their contacts and keep them away from the vulnerable. We keep an eye on children, let teachers who are positive for COVID-19 exposure teach, and get back to normal. We COULD establish herd immunity in the people who are least affected (the young adults/children), people who are willing to take risks to go out and resume life because it most likely won’t hurt them. We also keep the people who are most at risk, keep them self-isolated until we get a vaccine.
If we HAD TESTING, we could figure this out and manage the roll-out appropriately.
However, currently now we have no ability to test anyone but the most obvious cases. We currently do not know who is infected asymptomatically. We do not know who has BEEN infected and recovered. We do not know who is still at risk. We have no idea about our herd.
And because we have no idea who is a part of the herd, we have to assume, no one is. Physical distancing/quarantining is all we have to protect people who could be seriously infected/die.
My mom is 83 and lives with me. Her best friends live down the street, are in their 80’s and both have COPD. I have been isolating to keep my mom healthy. This is because until I know that I am recovered (and cannot infect her), we have a vaccine (she cannot get it) or we have a drug treatment so that when she gets it she survives (without hospitalization), I am self-quarantining. If I brought it home because I was out and about, and she became infected through MY actions? I could not live with that knowledge. I stand with Fauci.
I also think that we will see a spike in new infections in two weeks when the people who are insisting that all is ok, we can go out now….because they want to play golf and get their haircut? All I can say is: stay safe out there and hunker-down y’all.
