When do you think virus-related disruptions will end?

[BRT]

My guess is they round up 99.6% to 100%. Looking at the data noises, the error may be +/- 1% considering so many variables coming into the data. The model seems to normalize the data into a normal distribution curve, which may not be normal. It might be skewed / spreading wider to the later date if we are loosening the social distancing too soon and generating the "second wave" pandemic.

The difference between 99.6 and 100% is really, really large. It is the difference between having a surge every time you let people act normally and being over the virus.

 

[Shasta_man]

I suggest the bigger problem is whether countries are actually doing enough testing to get an accurate picture. That's certainly a big problem here in the US. Everybody understandably wants to get back to work but we hear of continuing infections and people not being able to get tested. Besides the second wave...

Judging the true picture is complicated by idiotic politics and which news network you choose to believe.

 

[Umuntu]

I believe there are insufficient tests available in almost all western countries. The supply cannot keep up with demand.

 

[MichaelMc]

Those dates overlook that many people are on shelter at home. So if shelter at home is your vision of the world future, then sure, those might be the dates we get to 97% and 100%. Otherwise, these are rather misleading graphs, as presented.

 

[broncobowsher]

Considering how many people get sick before this was a thing, who says we are not already in the second wave? The first one just didn't have the news hype to it.

 

[BRT]

I believe there are insufficient tests available in almost all western countries. The supply cannot keep up with demand.

As somebody here said, if the US could do a million tests a day it would only take a year to do everybody. Of course you don't know if you are negative with one test, too many false negatives so maybe 2 years. Of course, the day after you have your second negative test you could be newly infected......

 

[BRT]

Considering how many people get sick before this was a thing, who says we are not already in the second wave? The first one just didn't have the news hype to it.

What we need are antibody tests.

 

[Angelo Farina]

Considering how many people get sick before this was a thing, who says we are not already in the second wave? The first one just didn't have the news hype to it.

Of course we are in the second wave. the first wave was purely in China, and was already ending when the second wave started here in Italy, South Korea and Iran. Many other waves will follow. Have you seen the model developed by the Imperial College in London? This is not a stupid data-driven mathematical model (based on a theoretical formula and ignoring the real phenomena), this is a true epidemiological model, which predicts the necessity of a long alternance of lock-downs and openings:
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/im...-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf

However, also this model has an high uncertainty, as the authors write clearly, and the behaviour of this specific epidemic seems quite anomalous and difficult to predict even with the better epidemiological models.
Hence the question "When do you think virus-related disruptions will end?" is actually very difficult to answer, we are yet in a field of almost pure speculation. I think that a reasonable model can be trusted only when it will demonstrate capable of predicting the complete up and down of both the first and the second wave, then we can thrust it for the following waves (hopefully smaller at each peak). What is particularly difficult to predict is the effect of each single distancing measure, and how they will interact.
Just an example: starting on the next Monday 4th May, Italy will re-open a number of production plants and factories. But not schools or kindergardens. In families where both parents work, they will need to have someone taking care of their children, and in many case it will be a job for the grandparents. This way, the elderly people, those most at risk for the virus, will be in strict contact with children, which are the most powerful symptom-less transmitters.
This will certainly cause a second wave of infections, but currently epidemiological models seems to show that this is not as bad as also reopening schools...

 

[CWK]

Of course we are in the second wave. the first wave was purely in China, and was already ending when the second wave started here in Italy, South Korea and Iran. Many other waves will follow. Have you seen the model developed by the Imperial College in London? This is not a stupid data-driven mathematical model (based on a theoretical formula and ignoring the real phenomena), this is a true epidemiological model, which predicts the necessity of a long alternance of lock-downs and openings:
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/im...-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf
View attachment 583657
However, also this model has an high uncertainty, as the authors write clearly, and the behaviour of this specific epidemic seems quite anomalous and difficult to predict even with the better epidemiological models.
Hence the question "When do you think virus-related disruptions will end?" is actually very difficult to answer, we are yet in a field of almost pure speculation. I think that a reasonable model can be trusted only when it will demonstrate capable of predicting the complete up and down of both the first and the second wave, then we can thrust it for the following waves (hopefully smaller at each peak). What is particularly difficult to predict is the effect of each single distancing measure, and how they will interact.
Just an example: starting on the next Monday 4th May, Italy will re-open a number of production plants and factories. But not schools or kindergardens. In families where both parents work, they will need to have someone taking care of their children, and in many case it will be a job for the grandparents. This way, the elderly people, those most at risk for the virus, will be in strict contact with children, which are the most powerful symptom-less transmitters.
This will certainly cause a second wave of infections, but currently epidemiological models seems to show that this is not as bad as also reopening schools...

I’m a graduate of Imperial from way back when. I’d say that there are too many random variables involved - such as the presence of super spreaders. I’d be inclined to think that subsequent waves will be random and may not be possible to model. That’s just my personal opinion. Nobody knows for certain.

 

[CWK]

Furthermore, there are mutations some of which may be more infectious. Difficult to model for mutations.