03-23-2020, 12:56 PM
(03-23-2020, 10:34 AM)OutsiderFan Wrote: Lockdown is finally starting to work! Now the question is how long must it stay in place to keep spread manageable. That's only possible with testing. Hopefully the antibody test from South Korea and others like it can be mass produced so those with immunity can go back into public life and those without it can stay distanced from others.The immunity test will be useful, but unfortunately only marginally so. It will allow people who have had the disease and have immunity to remain in the mainstream and not get quarantined if the are re-exposed. However, that is a very small percentage of the population. Right now 0.1% of the Italian population has been confirmed to have the disease. Even if there are 10 times as many silent cases out there generating immunity, the vast majority of the public will not have had the disease and will test negative for the antibody. These people will still need to be quarantined if exposed. Distancing won't cut it when a nation is trying to return to normal, as even minimal non-compliance will re-inject the disease into the general non-immune public, and here we go again. Full on quarantine will be needed in Italy and the USA because people who have been exposed but are not sick (yet) simply will not reliably self-quarantine. In Korea, you can get away with trusting people, although that almost bit them too. In a few years, maybe the general herd immunity will be high enough the antibody test will be a real good tool, but right now, not so much.