Joe how is the timeline playing out for the spread of the virus in the USA compared to predictions? Just wondering, this coming Tuesday will be 8 weeks since the first confirmed case in the USA.
That would be easy to answer if we didn't have a massive lack of testing. Also, we have to look at the first confirmed case of community transmission in the US, not the first identified case as that was travel related. The first community transmission case which I believe was Feb 26th or 27th was only 18 days ago. Thats the indicator where lost containment and we know positively that it was spreading in the wild. As for testing the only inclination they have right now are severely ill people showing up at hospitals. We know from the data that people can be infected for 2-14 days before having symptoms, and 3-5 days before it progresses to the point they seek care. Add in another day or two for test results, data-wisewise we are 6-21 days before we see even very narrowly scoped numbers.
The reality is we have no reason to believe that what we've seen in Italy, Spain, soKoreaorea, and other countries will be any different here in America. We don't have some sort of supergene that makes us immune and the rest of the world doesn't.
What we do know is there is a geographically dispersed indication of untraceable large community spread. Meaning all over America people are coming down with COVID who have not traveled and don't know anyone who is sick. Many of the cases now can't even be traced to a common location or activity. Knowing that it's asinine for a person to take the position that because we don't have a plethora of positive test results means it's not a problem here, and people are overacting. What that means is we aren't testing at nearly the rate that we need to be and the virus is spreading unchecked.
There are really two ways to stop community transmission. Very draconian restrictions like we saw in China where everyone in a geographic area was put on lockdown. Or very aggressive early detection of case with extensive contact tracing to identify probable cases, and then quarantining just those individuals. Which is what Singapore has done. Here in the US we are not effectively doing either one of those tactics. Yes we have taken some steps like shutting down schools, large gatherings, etc but that will only slow the spread, not contain it. .