Strategy choice for Covid-19 pandemic. (1) Tomas Pueyo (2) Imperial College London (23 MAR 2020)

Interesting, urgent articles by (1) Tomás Pueyo and (2) the Imperial College COVID-19 Response Team on the probable consequences of several political options to cope with the pandemic.
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(1) Tomás Pueyo

(a) Coronavirus: Why You Must Act Now (updatede 19 MAR 2020)
https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca

When you’re done reading the article, this is what you’ll take away:

• The coronavirus is coming to you. 
• It’s coming at an exponential speed: gradually, and then suddenly.
• It’s a matter of days. Maybe a week or two.
• When it does, your healthcare system will be overwhelmed.
• Your fellow citizens will be treated in the hallways. 
• Exhausted healthcare workers will break down. Some will die.
• They will have to decide which patient gets the oxygen and which one dies. 
• The only way to prevent this is social distancing today. Not tomorrow. Today.
• That means keeping as many people home as possible, starting now.

As a politician, community leader or business leader, you have the power and the responsibility to prevent this.

In Catalan: "Coronavirus: Perquè hem d’actuar ara mateix"
https://medium.com/tomas-pueyo/coronavirus-perqu%C3%A8-hem-dactuar-ara-mateix-7d744ad7b246

Quan acabis de llegir l’article, tot això et quedarà clar:

• El Coronavirus s’està apropant.
• Ho fa a una velocitat exponencial: gradualment i sobtada.
• És qüestió de dies. Potser d’una o dues setmanes.
• Quan ho faci, el sistema sanitari podria col.lapsar.
• Molts ciutadans hauran de ser atesos en passadissos.
• Els treballadors sanitaris no podran més. Gent morirà.
• Hauran de decidir a quin pacient va l’oxígen i quin pacient morirà.
• La manera de mitigar la situació és el distanciament social. No demà. Avui.
• Això significa mantenir la gent a casa. Tanta i tant de temps com sigui possible.

Com a polític, membre de comunitat o associació, o empresari, tens la responsabilitat de prevenir aquesta situació.

...ooo000ooo...

(b) Coronavirus: The Hammer and the Dance (19 MAR 2020)
https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-the-hammer-and-the-dance-be9337092b56

Strong coronavirus measures today should only last a few weeks, there shouldn’t be a big peak of infections afterwards, and it can all be done for a reasonable cost to society, saving millions of lives along the way. If we don’t take these measures, tens of millions will be infected, many will die, along with anybody else that requires intensive care, because the healthcare system will have collapsed.

Versió en català: Coronavirus: El martell i la dansa
El que ens podrien deparar els propers 18 mesos si el polítics aconsegueixen fer-nos guanyar temps.
https://medium.com/@danielsflamarich/coronavirus-el-martell-i-la-dansa-75d2ef3ecea0

Si adoptem mesures realment estrictes davant d’aquesta situació, aquestes només hauran de durar unes setmanes. El pic d’infeccions no seria gaire elevat tot seguit, i podríem aconseguir-ho amb un cost raonable per a la societat. Si en canvi, no les prenem, desenes de milions de persones seran infectades i moltes moriran - incloses persones en situació de risc- quan el sistema sanitari col·lapsi.

...ooo000ooo...

(2) the Imperial College COVID-19 Response Team

"Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to reduce COVID-19 mortality and healthcare demand".
Imperial College COVID-19 Response Team (London)
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf

" ... Perhaps our most significant conclusion is that mitigation is unlikely to be feasible without emergency surge capacity limits of the UK and US healthcare systems being exceeded many times over. In the most effective mitigation strategy examined, which leads to a single, relatively short epidemic (case isolation, household quarantine and social distancing of the elderly), the surge limits for both general ward and ICU beds would be exceeded by at least 8-fold under the more optimistic scenario for critical care requirements that we examined. In addition, even if all patients were able to be treated, we predict there would still be in the order of 250,000 deaths in GB, and 1.1-1.2 million in the US.

In the UK, this conclusion has only been reached in the last few days, with the refinement of estimates of likely ICU demand due to COVID-19 based on experience in Italy and the UK (previous planning estimates assumed half the demand now estimated) and with the NHS providing increasing certainty around the limits of hospital surge capacity.

We therefore conclude that epidemic suppression is the only viable strategy at the current time. The social and economic effects of the measures which are needed to achieve this policy goal will be profound. Many countries have adopted such measures already, but even those countries at an earlier stage of their epidemic (such as the UK) will need to do so imminently."