What would be interesting is to see is the pedigree information on those dying above the baseline. If this is really CV, then we should see a lot of old and sick people.
If that is the case (and it should be) then I guess I still don't understand the lockdown for the majority of the healthy working force. We have a new virus, and it is killing more than usual old and sick people. So I guess....so what? I don't want to see anybody die, and I hate this is happening, but I still don't see the need for the lockdown for EVERYBODY.
First question would seem to be - "does anyone need to isolate at all"
Answers to that seem to depend on the following
- Will slowing the spread allow you to establish better medical care (supply chains, PPE, treatments, etc.)
- Will not slowing the spread overwhelm your hospitals and lead to much higher death
- Will slowing the spread allow you to get a vaccine significantly faster than you will reach herd immunity while in "lockdown"
Once you've answered those that it is worth trying to slow this down (or not), then
Next question is - "can you effectively isolate only a portion of the population?"
This seems to be a very good solution if you can do it. I think it is proving incredibly difficult to do. My colleague whose entire family got it had their grandmother in lockdown in her house (and the rest of his family in their house 5 doors down). They were taking her groceries, but wiping them down. Somehow she got it. She either got it about 2-3 weeks before in one encounter they had about a week before anyone got sick or she got it from when they were transferring groceries. That is interesting to me because it suggests very little contact can spread, and so when you have more and more active carriers as we let it rip through the "low risk" population, seems risk of infecting the "at risk" gets pretty high.
Now that takes us back to the first questions....
We aren't going to stay locked down. We need to be prepared for what that means and try to mitigate the risks of it in every way we can.