Video Interview: Interview with Daniel O'Connor, Non-Executive Director Hollista Colltech - February, page-33

Interesting article about Covid-19, how it might play out. Basically containment is failing unfortunately,thoughts will shift to endemic, ie. with us all in the community slowed spread by public measures so hospitals can cope. HCT needs to respond by increasing production in an economically responsible fashion and increasing reach of its products. Endorsement on COVID-19 by lab testing, is needed.

https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2020/3/6/21161234/coronavirus-covid-19-science-outbreak-ends-endemic-vaccine

Given this new, uncertain phase, I decided to go back to some of the same virologists, immunologists, and epidemiologists (and a few new ones) with my question: How does this outbreak end?

The most uncomfortable answer they gave is the possibility that Covid-19 keeps spreading at a high rate and becomes endemic — regularly infecting humans, like the common cold.

“Without an effective vaccine, I don’t know how this ends before millions of infections,” Nathan Grubaugh, an epidemiologist at the Yale School of Public Health, says.

...

“If we slow it so that infections happen over 10 or 12 months instead of over one month, that’s going to make a big difference as far as how many people seriously infected, how many people may end up hospitalized, and how many they end up dying,” Smith says. “We talk about it as ‘flattening the epidemic curve’ — so that it’s not a big, sudden peak in cases, but it’s a more moderate plateau over time.”

Flattening the epidemic curve, in one chart.CDC

And that’s the current goal: to flatten the curve.

The better scenario: Public health measures slow the spread and buy scientists time to work on treatments

New cases in China are now declining thanks to the government’s dramatic measures to contain the virus — mainly case finding, contact tracing, and suspension of public gatherings — as WHO epidemiologist Bruce Aylward, who led a recent mission there, told my colleague Julia Belluz.

In the US, there’s still time to put those efforts in place to flatten that curve.