We were told to "flatten the curve." Everybody understood that the area under the curve would be the same, i.e. total infections would be the same. The goal was to avoid spiking over the line -- the line being health care resources. We did.
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Because more people who could infect Bob will already be recovered and hence non-contagious by then.
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That might be right but isn't obvious to me. It's conceivable that, if you prolongue the epidemic, you may get infected repeatedly, even with a lower absolute number of contagious people. In a short and intense outbreak, you may be exposed many times, but can only get infected 1
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The notion of flattening the curve was a way of popularizing the idea of reducing the transmission rate (more precisely, the basic reproductive number R0) of the virus. Social distancing measures, hygiene, and other epidemic control efforts have this effect.
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When you reduce R0, people with the disease transmit to fewer other people. As a result, the herd immunity threshold is lower. Fewer people have to be infected to reach herd immunity — at which point the epidemic starts to slow down.
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Is that somehow in science speak a rebuttal of his point?
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And what happens when all clear is given and a case comes in from somewhere infecting people unknowingly? Right back where we started. I’ve always assumed area under curves was the same.
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Some epidemiologists say these things ‘just go away at a certain point’ it’s over my head. I can only think of The Andromeda Strain by Crichton.
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought flattening's goal was to prevent deaths, not infections.
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The point was to prevent UNNECESSARY deaths due to lack of resources from hospitals being overrun. That’s where the whole “stay home, save a life” message got lost.
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