As panic descends and aggressive lockdown measures start in the US, are we causing more harm on a population level than good? Regardless of the answer, we need to discuss the question. Legendary vaccine scientist and rationalist Dr. Paul Offit and I discuss the current response to the COVID-19 epidemic, relationships to influenza and RSV, absolute vs. relative risk, which populations we should target most for social distancing, the fecal-oral spread of this novel coronavirus, comparisons to norovirus and rotavirus, and a deep dive into vaccine development and its challenges.
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Our society is governed by mobs driven by fear and knee jerk reactions. While the anger driven by fear out there is justifiable because of long standing social inequity, this self-destructive lunacy is not the answer. This species is no longer able to care for itself.
Thank you for the much needed rational, scientific and evidence based discussion. More people need to hear this. Shutting everything down is not the solution, it’s actually causing way more problems, and will cost way more lives down the road.
I don’t agree nor do I totally disagree. My main issue is that there are a large number of Americans with underlying immune problems that Covid-19 will likely harm or kill (Diabetes, COPD, etc.) – in ALL Age Groups. Yes it is significant for people over Age 60, but it does harm people in their 30s and 40s as seen in Italy and Spain. Finally, the rapid spread of the Covid19 virus means that the number of people flooding the healthcare system will be immense. And your discussion really did not emphasize that as the reason for the Social Isolation response.
I totally agreed. I have argued that it would be much more rational to develop a model (not too difficult) that estimates the probability that someone would die on the basis of risk factors (age, heart desease yes/no etc.) and put the people who are above a certain threshhold in isolation with the communicty providing them food and medical suppleies at home or in a shelter. The current approach is totally absurd and hyterical.