The upshot of the findings is that the fairly gentle Japanese tactics seem to work, and some combination of mask-wearing and avoiding prolonged periods in unventilated crowded indoor spaces will be enough to stop the pandemic in its tracks without the additional lockdown drama.
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If you want to learn more about the Japanese approach, the amazing
@miekocakes is translating their public health experts on the account@fightingenie55. I spent the last three months in Japan and assure you that kind of lockdown is completely livable while we wait for a vaccine2 replies 13 retweets 24 likesShow this thread -
Lots and lots of linked studies in the article at the top of this thread, so you're just going to have to click.
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And one selfish reason we should fight with all our might for Taiwan and Hong Kong is the contributions they have made to the science of this disease, its spread, and how to effectively contain it, even if we didn't always listen
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This theory of spread leads to a somewhat testable prediction that the large outdoor protests taking place in the US should not cause a significant spike in coronavirus cases, and that the locus of spread will continue to be indoor spaces like nursing homes and meatpacking plants
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Replying to @Pinboard
Fantastic. So if all we need to worry about is 20% of the cases being superspreadera, and we have somewhere between 1.4M and, say, 10m active cases, then all we need to do is contact-trace and isolate 280K-1m people. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.
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Replying to @matthew_d_green
This is kind of disingenuous. If disease spread is driven by superspreading events that fit a pretty specific pattern, the Japanese example shows that you can run a first-world economy of 125 million at a fairly normal level while containing the arrival and spread of the disease.
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Replying to @Pinboard @matthew_d_green
If I were going there I wouldn't be starting from here.
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Replying to @kevinmarks @matthew_d_green
No doubt this is trenchant but I don't follow you.
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Replying to @Pinboard @matthew_d_green
It's the old Irish saying when asked for directions. The Japanese example works when the disease isn't widespread. The UK and US are a long way from that and are currently making it worse.
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The disease isn't widespread in most parts of the US, and conversely there was community spread happening in Osaka, Hokkaido, Kobe and Tokyo. But cluster-chasing and masks proved remarkably effective. Seems worth a try to me.
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Since we know the disease spreads primarily through superspreading events, and those seem to be occurring in fairly specific circumstances, understanding those events better and finding countermeasures strikes me as the royal road to containing the pandemic.
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Replying to @Pinboard @kevinmarks
I have no problem with trying it. Why don’t you get in touch with the relevant authorities in places like Alabama and Arkansas and South Carolina.
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End of conversation
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