scrubbedexpat141

There's the app as well?

fth

Nah, shock collars might do the trick though

csdf

I'm really curious to know how people (not just UAE, but anywhere) are still catching this. I mean - are they just unlucky, or careless? We're in month 4 of a global pandemic, with non-stop #stayhome, wear masks, wash your hands, stand 2m apart, don't meet family, no gatherings yada yada yada. It would be interesting (but impossible) to know how many of the current daily infections were people ignoring the rules vs people who for one reason or another couldn't follow the rules. Or are in really high-risk jobs (e.g. medics).

scrubbedexpat141

Really, it would be good if the whole world could get everyone to stay at home, locked in, for 20 days.

Governments could support food distribution so people can survive on reasonable rations, but nobody is allowed anywhere for that period. Anyone with the disease or who has just been infected will get it and get over it, potentially. Anyone with it who might die from it, dies from it. Everyone else comes out after the 20 days and the disease is eradicated - people either died or got over it and are no longer infectious.

csdf

Ha ha - I can just see going down well in Freedomland.

scrubbedexpat141

Just imagine though, it would rid the disease in a few weeks.

fth

Local media here suggests that infections are happening with two groups

- People who catch it at work and spread it at home
- People who have willfully ignored the guidance and had gatherings

DXBtoDOH

Rioters, BLM protesters and people who topple statues and their enablers.

DXBtoDOH

China had extraordinarily restrictive lockdowns and drove the virus dormant, but still didn't manage to eliminate it and it's popped back up in Beijing. That tells you the limited effectiveness of the theory of locking everyone at home for 20 days.

You can't completely lock up society for 20 days. Someone has to deliver the food, for example. People still have to man the nuclear plants. People still need to staff hospitals in case someone has a heart attack or a nasty fall at home. Think carefully of all the things that still need oversight even during a 20 day quarantine. I'm sure animal feed lots didn't occur to you, but someone needs to feed the cows and chickens. Others need to keep the food supply chains moving forward.

scrubbedexpat141

What if the whole world did it? I appreciate it's utopian but if every country shut their borders completely and kept everyone inside for that period, there'd be no new infections in theory.

DXBtoDOH

The Asian flu epidemic of 1957 broke out of China and spread across the whole world. China in 1957 was a Maoist state that effectively did what you suggested, shutting their borders completely to the rest of the world and was a closed state.

The Wuhan lab bat flu is highly transmittable and can transmit by air. While almost all cases are due to prolonged exposure in close proximity via family members/coworkers, all it takes is for one person to infect an unlucky passing stranger and it does happen and that's why you're likely to see these mini outbreaks here and there despite extreme measures. With the high asymptomatic rates and that the large majority of people who exhibit symptoms only have mild symptoms, it's very easy for the virus to lie dormant or hidden while still slowly spreading. You're not vanquishing this any more than you can vanquish the common cold or yearly flu. You can mitigate it and that's about it.

The good news is that it will burn itself out the way the Spanish flu and the other Asian flu epidemics burned through and then flared out once herd immunity was achieved and became minor flus that occasionally kills. Through a combination of better treatment, knowledge, and herd immunity, COVID-19 will be largely kept down and made inconsequential, but people will still be dying of COVID-19 10 years from now, just as they die of the regular flu. A new virus is most lethal in its initial wave, culling the most susceptible (and why COVID-19 is so much a care home killer). We seem to have largely passed through that wave. The unknown question is whether it will mutate like the Spanish flu and a second wave begins this winter. The beloved media is fully convinced there will be one but I am somewhat doubtful for various reasons, but one thing for sure, we will spend all winter obsessed over the upcoming second wave.

Standanista

That Wuhan lab: a wonton lack of biosecurity.

Maxima

South Africa, India and Jordan had even tougher measures, the first 2 actually lifted their measures predicting it will get much worse, while Jordan had some success

Maxima

A 3rd factor is that a large number of workers live in shared housing, and one person catching it may lead to the whole flat or half the camp getting it.....

scrubbedexpat141

I learned a lot from this post. It was made in a Wuhan lab, it'll burn itself out (like other natural flu's, hopefully they engineered that into it), we're back to looking for herd immunity, it'll become inconsequential even though people will still die from it and second wave is going to hang back until winter to reappear.

Thank goodness for you and you're all-knowing mind.