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Comment by brink | Hacker News Reader

Stronger containment measures does not always equal better. All it does is buy time at the cost of time (and human rights). The curve gets flatter, yet the volume remains the same, unless they're biding it out for a vaccine. And who knows if/when that will come.

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If the entire world had contained the disease this well, then there would be no more COVID-19.

I keep telling people that and feel like a lone voice in the wilderness.

Not realistic.

I mean, it kind of is realistic. Many places in the world have drastically reduced cases. If every place managed to accomplish this, then through contact tracing and testing, it becomes simple to stop it in its tracks.

Unfortunately some people want to ruin things for everyone.

Yes, it is very realistic to lock poor people in the slums in their metal barracks to let them be cooked to death, before they starve to death, because they lost every income being locked in and their government is not competent or rich enough, to provide with basic supply. But yes, Covid19 could be erridicated this way.

Seriously,

"More than 820 million people are hungry globally"

"https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/15-07-2019-world-hunger...

820 million people on this earth were hungry in 2019.

When you are hungry, really hungry, which is not something most people in the western world know about, and also have only limited dirty water supply, then you have other problems, than a new disease, all the rich, old people are scared about.

So no, it is not at all realistic, to have the world in its current state, in effective lock-down, without causing more harm, than good. Unless you don't care about the poor in the first place.

The worst are those who prioritize politics above fighting the disease or those who consider mitigation solutions (such as masks) as a political statement.

SARS-1 is an example.

I wonder if containment is the only solution.

The vaccines on trial and in research, may not work.

Containment does work. Isolate the sick. Lock down for 4 weeks. Face masks everywhere. Keep socially distant. Avoid indoor settings.

Get groceries delivered, or have an employee inside do the shopping and packaging, and you pick up the order outside.

These are hard choices, but it can effectively kill this virus in 4 weeks. It’s not rocket science anymore.

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