1/ A small thread (this time i promise) , on the approach to dealing with COVID-19 on a country level. How we should proceed to prevent the lockdown from completely destroying our already frail economy.
2/ First a hats off to the gvt for , mostly, taking the right measures, however difficult that might have been to flatten the curve. It was done in a timely manner and kudos to them on assembling experts in committees to improve the response and plan for the next phase
3/ The measures have been largely successful and even though we still lag far behind in testing, our Health Care system has largely been spared the initial onslaught COVID brings with its exponential infection rate.
4/ Even though most of our real data is coming from Mount Lebanon and Beirut , the R0 for these areas is squarely under 1, and has been like that for the past 2 weeks. Time to plan our next move.
5/ We cannot keep the country at a standstill, nor can we just let it loose (We might never be able to do so before an effective treatment or a vaccine is found). So how should we proceed ?
6/ Here my opinion takes cues from @DrDavidKatz and @tomaspueyo , it typically centers around the "Dance of the R0" concept pushed by the latter.
@DrDavidKatz @tomaspueyo 7/ We should start re-opening our country and our economy, but we should do so in a surgical manner. Our elderly and those with pre-existing conditions should be kept in even stricter quarantines, for their sake and for that of our Health Care system.
@DrDavidKatz @tomaspueyo 8/ We should re-open our manufacturing facilities but impose a very rigorous protocol that would control the work space and the mvt to the facilities and back. The MoI should be assigned enough manpower to enforce multiple controls
@DrDavidKatz @tomaspueyo 9/ We should re-open our retail shops but make sure they follow a strict crowding rule (1-2 clients at a time per 50m2). Procedures on disinfecting and cleaning should be made available to shop owners, and municipalities should enforce those procedures.
@DrDavidKatz @tomaspueyo 10/ We can re-open our restaurants but remove half the seating capacity to make sure social distancing between different tables is always respected. Provide disinfecting wipes on all tables for the clients to use prior to seating themselves.
@DrDavidKatz @tomaspueyo 11/ We can re-open our universities and our colleges, if we cannot trust our educated youth to behave properly after 45 days of confinement, we are never going to beat this. Younger classes will have to wait .
@DrDavidKatz @tomaspueyo 12/ Our bars, nightclubs, cinemas and theaters will have to wait. Our places of worship will have to wait. Namely any entity that requires the close interaction of large groups will have to wait as the risk they carry is still too high.
@DrDavidKatz @tomaspueyo 13/ And for the love of god we remove the curfew and the plate number scheme. We should be trying to spread the population mvts over the widest time slot possible not the other way around.
@DrDavidKatz @tomaspueyo 14/ Then we monitor, if we see the R0 picking up we start, gradually, to reinstate some of the measures. And then repeat (hence the "Dance of the R0")
@DrDavidKatz @tomaspueyo 15/ To be clear, this is not a call to lift measures indiscriminately but rather approach it in a more surgical and precise way. We cannot sustain further shut down, and most importantly there is no end in sight to shoot for.
@DrDavidKatz @tomaspueyo 16/ Maybe this approach will improve herd immunity without causing too much damage. Maybe we end up being less prone to complications from contracting the virus (check my previous tweets), but at this point we are pretty much waiting for Godot
