When can social distancing end? The key: we need widespread testing, probably at a scale that is greater than South Korea (6000 per 1MM residents vs. 150 for US). Greater because Korea is able to leverage those tests with GPS/smartphone tools we won’t/can’t deploy.
Korea takes the GPS data from an infected patient’s phone and notifies everyone who was physically near that patient of that fact, for example. We won’t do that. Hence we probably need at least double the penetration of testing (12k/1MM residents, or 4MM tests) to get there.
It would obviously help if we can focus testing in areas with serious outbreaks (NY, FL, New Orleans, Seattle).
Too many people are getting the impression that we can simply do what South Korea or Taiwan or Singapore is doing. We can’t, at least without major policy changes, because in those countries the health IT infrastructure is far more robust (with some compromises on privacy).
Maybe #coronavirus gets Americans to rethink their traditional views on privacy. But Congress will have to reform outdated laws like HIPAA to make headway. Lobbyists for health industry incumbents will fight like hell to block that. bit.ly/2WGtSqi
At @FREOPP we will have more to say about this soon (the topic of international health systems and how they stack up regarding their ability to fight pandemics).
To be clear re privacy: it can be argued that the Taiwanese system, for example, is *more* private than the U.S. system; Americans' medical data is owned by private companies, not you. bit.ly/3ahPdtX
