from Hacker News

Analysis of 25,000 Lab-Confirmed Covid-19 Cases in Wuhan

by kderbe on 3/21/20, 5:42 AM with 2 comments

• by kderbe on 3/21/20, 5:56 AM

  What interested me about this report is slide 11, which estimates that the transmission rate R was still 1.25 with the lockdown in effect. See slide 32 for more explanation: "Traffic ban, mitigation (social distance) and home quarantine helped reduce R from 3.88 to 1.25, but was not good enough".

  Only with the centralized quarantine (slide 36) did R fall below 1.

  As I come to understand of what it means to "flatten the curve" (lower R, but it stays above 1), I don't know whether North American or European countries can tolerate these social distancing conditions for many months while people still die in droves. But I also don't hear any discussion of adopting the drastic quarantine measures China took to reverse the rate of spread.

  Have anybody heard Western governments preparing for possible mass quarantine sites yet?