{"id":42021,"date":"2020-03-12T08:00:17","date_gmt":"2020-03-12T13:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=42021"},"modified":"2020-03-12T08:00:17","modified_gmt":"2020-03-12T13:00:17","slug":"42021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=42021","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Why \u2018flattening the curve\u2019 may be the world\u2019s best bet to slow the coronavirus<\/a><\/p>\n

F<\/span><\/span>or many countries staring down fast-rising\u00a0coronavirus\u00a0case counts, the race is on to \u201cflatten the curve.\u201d<\/p>\n

The United States and other countries, experts say, are likely to be hit by tsunamis of Covid-19 cases in the coming weeks without aggressive public health responses. But by taking certain steps \u2014\u00a0canceling large public gatherings, for instance, and encouraging some people to restrict their contact with others \u2014 governments have a shot at stamping out new chains of transmission, while also trying to mitigate the damage of the spread that isn\u2019t under control.<\/p>\n

The epidemic curve, a statistical chart used to visualize when and at what speed new cases are reported, could be flattened, rather than being allowed to rise exponentially.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you look at the curves of outbreaks, they go big peaks, and then come down. What we need to do is flatten that down,\u201d Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told reporters Tuesday. \u201cThat would have less people infected. That would ultimately have less deaths. You do that by trying to interfere with the natural flow of the outbreak.\u201d<\/p>\n

The notion that the curve of this outbreak could be flattened began to gain credence after China took the extraordinary step of locking down tens of millions of people days in advance of the Lunar New Year, to prevent the virus from spreading around the country from Wuhan, the city where the outbreak appears to have started. Many experts at the time said it would have been impossible to slow a rapidly transmitting respiratory infection by effectively shutting down enormous cities \u2014 and possibly counterproductive.<\/p>\n

But the quarantines, unprecedented in modern times, appear to have prevented explosive outbreaks from occurring in cities outside of Hubei province, where Wuhan is located.<\/p>\n

Since then, spread of the virus in China has slowed to a trickle; the country reported only 19 cases on Monday. And South Korea, which has had the third largest outbreak outside of China, also appears to be beating back transmission through aggressive actions. But other places, notably Italy and Iran, are struggling.<\/p>\n

For weeks, a debate has raged about whether the virus could be \u201ccontained\u201d \u2014 an approach the WHO has been exhorting countries to focus on \u2014 or whether it made more sense to simply try to lessen the virus\u2019 blow, an approach known as \u201cmitigation.\u201d<\/p>\n

That argument has been counterproductive, Mike Ryan, the head of the WHO\u2019s health emergencies program, said Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019ve had this unfortunate emergence of camps around the containment camp, the mitigation camp \u2014 different groups presenting and championing their view of the world. And frankly speaking, it\u2019s not helpful,\u201d Ryan told reporters.<\/p>\n

Caitlin Rivers, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, said any lessening of spread will help health systems remain functional.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven if we are not headed to zero transmission, any cases that we can prevent and any transmission that we can avoid are going to have enormous impact,\u201d she said. \u201cNot only on the individuals who end up not getting sick but all of the people that they would have ended up infecting. \u2026 And so the more that we can minimize it, the better.\u201d……..<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why \u2018flattening the curve\u2019 may be the world\u2019s best bet to slow the coronavirus For many countries staring down fast-rising\u00a0coronavirus\u00a0case counts, the race is on to \u201cflatten the curve.\u201d The United States and other countries, experts say, are likely to be hit by tsunamis of Covid-19 cases in the coming weeks without aggressive public health … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health-medicine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42021"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42021\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42022,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42021\/revisions\/42022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}