1. Good point 2. Without sustained protective measures, we only get herd immunity after a certain number get infected, roughly 50% for R0 = 2. So I donāt think short-term measures alone (e.g. earlier travel or event banning) would impact this. 3. Again, you need sustained efforts, not just a difference in short-term effort to flatten the curve. 4. Good point 5. Without 4, it appears that the outbreak would have already peaked by the time we develop, test, and scale up a vaccine 6. This is possible, but most think other countries will not take as extreme measures
So overall, this does give significant probability that short-term actions could have high impact, so they do look worth doing.
I canāt imagine having local events (or CEA hosting EA Global in SF) in April unless the curve seriously flattens or this turns out to be a false alarm.
1. Good point
2. Without sustained protective measures, we only get herd immunity after a certain number get infected, roughly 50% for R0 = 2. So I donāt think short-term measures alone (e.g. earlier travel or event banning) would impact this.
3. Again, you need sustained efforts, not just a difference in short-term effort to flatten the curve.
4. Good point
5. Without 4, it appears that the outbreak would have already peaked by the time we develop, test, and scale up a vaccine
6. This is possible, but most think other countries will not take as extreme measures
So overall, this does give significant probability that short-term actions could have high impact, so they do look worth doing.
How short-term is short-term? I can imagine a world where we donāt do in-person EA meetups for a year, for example (and also if things look bad, I might self-isolate for multiple months). Also it looks like very serious efforts do decrease the doubling time a lot: https://āāourworldindata.org/āācoronavirus#what-we-do-know-the-doubling-time-of-known-cases
I was thinking of short term as weeks, e.g. canceling events in March instead of waiting until April to cancel events from then on.
I canāt imagine having local events (or CEA hosting EA Global in SF) in April unless the curve seriously flattens or this turns out to be a false alarm.
Edited for clarity.