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Comment by atemerev | Hacker News Reader

The "experts" are saying many different things. Currently, the new situation is being analyzed, but it seems that even pervasive non-pharmaceutical interventions (masks obligatory in all closed spaces, ban on public events, etc) are still not enough to keep Rt below 1.0 and "get it under control" (see the second wave effects in Europe). Lockdowns seemed to work, but economically unsustainable. As of now, there is no clear answer about how to proceed.

And that's before the epic blame game even started. Boy, that would be interesting to watch.

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I don't think the lockdowns in europe for second wave flareups will be anywhere near as wide ranging as the initial lockdowns.

It is mostly under control in europe, people understand and accept that if and when there are flareups local lockdowns will happen.

A "new normal" if you will.

If only there were a region of the world with experience suppressing pandemics while maintaining economic continuity.

Perhaps somewhere we could take lessons from with regards to public health policy.

Unfortunately, no country had ever dealt with anything like this. /s

That’s the point. I do a (small) contribution to my country’s (Switzerland), public health policy, as a researcher, but we have the same set of challenges as most other countries, at least in Europe. I just wanted to say there are no easy solutions out there.

No one suggested that there are any easy solutions, rather that ignoring health and economic experts and basing public policy on fantasy and Internet conspiracy theories has lead to a worse outcome.

My point was that Asia already managed their way through SARS in 2002+. While keeping a functioning economy.

And yet there seems to be a surprisingly little amount of "What choices did Asian countries make in 2002, 2003, and 2004? Which were effective / ineffective? What were their economic impacts?"

Instead, at the highest Western government levels, there seems to be an assertion that no one has ever faced anything like this before, and the choices that need to be made are without precedent.

All the flare ups across all of Europe across all of the pandemic so far hardly match a day of new cases in America.

So far, yes. The US are still working to get the first wave under control. However, the prospects for Europe are currently not too optimistic.

The major issue is the thinking that we need to open the economy in spite of the virus. The virus and the economy are inextricably linked. The smart thing to do would have been to subsidize household incomes in a much more meaningful way than just the table scraps that were provided to truly incentivize people to stay home. That coupled with federal mandates and bi-partisan support for public safety measures would have us in a totally different place than we are today. Ironically, it would have helped Trump's reelection campaign--as he would have been the hero of the day for getting the pandemic under control. Instead--we find ourselves in this debacle with politicians pointing fingers and a bunch of woulda, coulda, shoulda conversations happening. Seems bleak.

Masks would work if everybody wore them

And, wore them properly.

I was in southern France recently. Nearly 100% of people there are wearing masks inside shops, public transport, and other confined spaces. And still, even there we now see the clear increase in daily cases (it is much slower than before, but still happening)

There's no (edit to add: good} evidence for that.

the problem is that masks have a minor effect at best thus in no way represent the solution so many seek

Not “a minor effect”, they seem to improve Rt more or less significantly (according to preliminary studies). But they are probably not enough on their own.

This feels like such an American solution. If everyone just does this one magic thing then life will continue on as usual. First it was hydroxychloroquine, then a lock-down and now masks.

Masks worn correctly limits spread, but it's just a piece in the puzzle of tools available, and almost certainly not the most significant one, that is not meeting people.

Look at Finland, Norway and Denmark, they all successfully controlled it so far without mask usage. Catching up with research they now encourage it in indoor situations where you can't distance, even though the recommendation still is to not even be there if possible. Leaving it as a tool available if current measures aren't enough.

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