Short thread on trade of (slowing economy down) vs (slowing COVID19) - and how to potentially minimize the economic damage while still keeping spread down. Singapore and China have dramatically slowed spread of disease via Social Distancing 1/n
Social Distancing as implemented in China has had large impact on their economy (see recent PMI), but even Singapore has like incurred significant cost. So the question is what is the optimal Social Distancing - I.e. to maximize economy, while minimizing R0? 2/n
Which social activities bring out biggest spread? Plane trips (everyone is jammed together)? All-day business mtgs? Central air? Sick cook in restaurant? All of these are readily traceable events, so we should be able to know via standard tracing. 3/n
Lancet published a paper w data on this, and it is surprising what is on the list, but even more surprising what is NOT on the list (see list previous tweet). Almost all the spreading events were shared meals (eg no plane flights). LINK 4/n https://t.co/IIVGO2n4gU
Might this be spurious? Eg an artifact of how they collected the data? Maybe. But the larger point is it will be important to know which forms of social contact are most risky but with least economic impact, and thus are best targeted in social distancing policy. n/n
