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Message: <blockquote data-quote="NotAYakk" data-source="post: 7942382" data-attributes="member: 72555">Yes it does.  But it isn't a solution.We aren't going to do this for 10 years.  If our plan is to actually develop herd immunity and get 30%-70% infected, and we do it over 10 years, we stay under capacity.  If we do it in 5 years, we blow past capacity, and death rates hit 3%-5% instead of 4%-10%.  If we do over 1 year, death rates become basically the same as if we never did it.I'm saying it isn't a solution.  I'm saying the steps involved in flattening the curve do save lives, they do delay deaths, and they can be part of a solution.  But this disease is far to nasty to be solved by "flattening the curve".Yes, it can buy time for another solution.We have 1 solution that works.  Its initial steps are helped by reducing infections.  Other solutions may or may not arrive.We should move towards the direction of that working solution.This is the same direction as the "flattening the curve" non-solution, so doing the steps involved with flattening the curve is great. But we should not expect that the measures taken to flatten the curve will go away in a few weeks, unless we move to another solution.Every location that has beat this back has engaged in large scale social isolation.  Right now I'm staring at stats out of Italy to find out if their relatively modest restrictions are enough to make the growth curve go sub-exponential (the last 2 days looked good -- 2400, 2600 new cases -- if they keep it up over the weekend, I'm really excited).No, I'm a literate person with whose mathematical literacy in the top fraction of a percent who has read a lot of epidemiological stuff over the past 2 months because I've been concerned about this issue.  (Note: Being good at math is mostly useless in life, but it helps when understanding exponential curves.)Yes, we should social distance and reduce transmission.  "Flatten the curve" as a solution is what I'm talking about. The idea we just let it saturate the population and we just make it happen slower doesn't work (well, I'm not willing to give up yet), and if our solution is "flatten the curve" that is all it provides.How about SK?  How about Italy?The get to forking work.You go to war with the troops you have, not the ones you want.  This is a war, and something like 300 million people around the world, and 15 million US citizens, lives are at stake, plus many more crippled for life.Yes, your federal executive is a fuckup.  Go talk to your state government and get them to hire the pandemic experts they fired and get your state on it.  Start with what you can do (social distancing, limiting travel).  Raise finagling taxes or borrow money to start funding your own labs to do testing.Get your state on a war footing now, don't want for Trump and gang to get a brain.  "Flatten the curve" will buy time, and your federal government executive response is busy shaking people's hands after being exposed to it and arranging huge conferences to spread this thing.And if your state is also brain dead?  Talk to your city.  If that is brain dead?  Talk to your neighbors, your church.  Failing all of that, organize your gosh-darn gaming group.Find the largest organization you can direct to attack this mofoing plague.Have absolutely nobody?  Call up elderly neighbors and see about delivering them food and supplies."Flatten the curve" is not going to solve this.  The US president is not going to solve this.But you can help.  Very locally, you can help the vulnerable stay safe (deliver food and stuff so they don't have to expose themselves), which isn't much, but is something.  Going up from there it gets more abstract and less direct, but a modern US city isn't a helpless creature who has to wait for Trump to stop pretending this is a Hoax.As noted, language, watch it please.</blockquote>

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