??
It cannot be "contained" any more. Consensus is it's pandemic, it's not hard to see.
Do we not understand how this works? What do reporters or the public think can happen?
Even if there is a vaccination, which in reality will be years off, we can't even vaccinate measles across the world and certainly not by 'May'.
We can't even supply gloves and face masks at the levels we need.
an order*
SARS had ~8500 cases, ~800 deaths [1]. COVID-19 is currently ~81000 cases and ~2700 deaths.[2] It will be orders, plural, at some point, but remains to be seen how big (and I won't speculate on that).
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2003_Probable_cases_of_SA...
[2] https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.h...
But having some numbers to compare is better than having none (or trusting gut instinct).
When you have no numbers, you have high confidence that you have low information.
When you have some numbers that are reported as though they are very granular and accurate, you have extreme confidence that you have high information.
The latter, in my view, is a more precarious position from which to make decisions.
Look at the SARS timeline, it was > 100 times less at this point -
We're reaching a point where people far from typical travel hubs are showing up infected, but nobody around them is reported as being infected. That means there are silent cases lurking everywhere, undetected. To me that says two things. One is that it's highly under-reported, and two is that it's probably evolved to become something fairly mild and not much worse than a cold in most instances.
Data from China is limited, but outside of China, it seems like only the elderly (as in around 80 and up) are dying. I've seen one report of a 40-something dying. While reports are easily well over a thousand outside of China, deaths are still quite low. Recovery numbers are still low, so it's too early to say for sure, but it seems like the biggest problem now is insufficient medical facilities and unprepared staff.
COVID-19 has a 21+ day incubation period, is contagious before you're symptomatic, and is possibly airborne (I haven't heard strong confirmation of that yet, but it's definitely more virulent).
Also from [0] however:
"Sunlight will cut the virus ability to grow in half so the half-life will be 2.5 minutes and in the dark it’s about 13m to 20m. Sunlight is really good at killing viruses. That’s why I believe that Australia and the southern hemisphere will not see any great infections rates because they have lots of sunlight and they are in the middle of summer. And Wuhan and Beijing is still cold which is why there’s high infection rates.
In regards to temperature, the virus can remain intact at 4 degrees or 10 degrees for a longer period of time. But at 30 degrees then you get inactivation. And High humidity the virus doesn’t like it either. That’s why I think Sars stopped around May and June in 2003 – that’s when there’s more sunlight and more humidity. The environment is a crucial factor. The environment will be unfavourable for growth around May. The evidence is to look at the common cold – it’s always during winter. So the natural environment will not be favourable in Asia in about May."
I believe this is the main reason May is the deadline for containment.
[0] https://www.fwdeveryone.com/t/puzmZFQGRTiiquwLa6tT-g/confere...
There are very few cases right now in South America or Australia -- and so far I can't find any evidence of person-to-person transmission on either continent.
If the outbreak continues to fail to take hold there for even just a couple more weeks, then it seems likely that the northern-hemisphere outbreak will die down when the season ends.
Other coronaviruses and most human respiratory viruses generally exhibit very strong seasonality. It seems likely that this virus will too. But, again, watch the southern hemisphere.
Of course, the flu is seasonal -- and returns every year. Even if this does burn out in late spring, it may be back next year.
Wouldn't Singapore already have shown this by now? They've had to devote considerable effort towards management and it's basically summer year-round there and it's quite humid..
Winter also means people wear gloves, touch their face less, and don't sweat as much.
> COVID-19 has a 21+ day incubation period
Example of a 27-day incubation: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-incubation/i...
I read that it's an extreme outlier. It's mostly 3-6 days.
No proof that it works, doesn't have terrible side effects, or actually does anything useful on humans.
I'll believe it when I see it. Until then the estimate of 1-2 years (which is already pretty fast for a vaccine that isn't already on a yearly-cycle like the flu shot), sounds far more likely.