Mason  🏃‍♂️ ✂️

If we're to trust the Wuhan data, it took 2 weeks for daily new cases to begin dropping. The good news is that once that begin, the decline was ~as steep as the growth. The bad news is that cumulative active cases continued to rise for some time.https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1240689047418236932 …

Isn't that problematic? Unless lockdown becomes permanent, don't we want a continued slow growth of cases to create herd immunity? We're still a year from having a vaccine, so our only option at the moment is controlled infection.

"Herd immunity" is speculative. Immediate reinfection appears very unlikely, but we don't know whether immunity post-infection lasts a few months or a few years.

What a lockdown buys you, especially in the absence of a widespread testing, is a chance to see the scope of the problem without dooming yourself. It takes approximately 2 weeks before today's new infections hit the medical system. Healthcare overwhelm is the #1 risk.

If you make it to the point where you see a decline in daily new cases *without* overwhelming your medical system, it's time to start reducing the most burdensome restrictions. If not, you probably want to wait for that fire to be put out.