Postpandemic Reality – Pumping the Brakes

Now let’s try to be realistic. This virus will not disappear.  Look out for on again, off again lockdowns.

With global coronavirus cases growing daily, in March 2020, Harvard infectious disease experts published an article in the Harvard Gazette.  Modeling showed that — absent the development of a vaccine or other intervention — a staggered pattern of social distancing would save more lives than a one-and-done strategy and avoid overwhelming hospitals while allowing immunity to build in the population.

The work, conducted by researchers at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and led by Yonatan Grad, the Melvin J. and Geraldine L. Glimcher Assistant Professor of Immunology and Infectious Diseases, and Marc Lipsitch, professor of epidemiology, also shows that if strict social distancing such as that imposed in China — which cuts transmission by 60 percent — is relaxed, it results in epidemic peaks in the fall and winter similar in size and with similar impacts on the health care system as those in an uncontrolled epidemic.

The research indicates that one possible method for dealing with the epidemic amid a lack of other effective interventions may be multiple “intermittent” social-distancing periods (ie lock downs) that ease up when cases fall to a certain level and then are reimposed when they rise past a key threshold. The exact numbers, the work showed, depend on whether COVID-19 is a seasonal ailment like the flu and common cold — also caused by a coronavirus — or whether it is equally transmissible year-round.  As time passes and more of the population gains immunity, they said, the restrictive episodes could be shorter, with longer intervals between them.

The question is whether there is the political will for intermittent social distancing periods ….or intermittent lock downs.  Presumably some countries will do it and some will not.  We need to be prepared

To help prepare you.  Here’s a link to a book I wrote to help International Entrepreneurs prepare for the Post Pandemic World.  It is available for free on this link –

https://claims.prolificworks.com/free/GdNwLwzY

Table of Contents: Postpandemic Reality – Pumping the Brakes

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