Thread by @jeremyfaust

Is it time to re-open?

Probably not.

Why?

Simultaneously too many cases (danger!) and too few cases (doesn't "feel real").

How do we convince people?

Public health messaging.

New piece in @Slate w/@meganranney ft work by @joshuasweitz!*

slate.com/technology/202…
THREAD! 1/

Here's the spoiler.
Read this one thing that we wrote. It sums it up.

With a million cases, 1 in 330 Americans has been infected.

-Around 1 in 5500 Americans has DIED
-But the avg American knows around 600 people
-Outside of hot zones, it's lower
-So most people know 0-1 people with the virus, and NO ONE who died
-Feels safe, if ya "look around"

But this one chart...shows why that's not the case.

It was made by @joshuasweitz and it is brilliant.

Let's talk through it....

On the x-axis is "size of event you are at"

On the y-axis is "number of circulating SARS-CoV-2 cases.

Let's look at another version of @joshuasweitz's chart, similar to the one in the @Slate article.

This one looks at number on the state level, like in Georgia...

Assuming there are 26,000 cases in Georgia (and this substantially UNDER estimates the case), how bad is your risk if you board the MARTA train?

This chart tells you.

Each train has a seating + standing capacity of 96.

Of course we know people pile in. But let's say 96 anyway.

Given that, the odds of being in a MARTA car with someone with the virus is 21%.

Now, that doesn't even account for the last group of commuters who touched the handle bars, sat down, etc.

It also does not account for the fact that we think that there may be FAR more cases.

The reason this matters now and less so for other diseases?

SARS-CoV-2 SPREADS IN PEOPLE WITHOUT SYMPTOMS.

That's it. That's it's secret sauce for making it a pandemic.

That means it moves through communities.

Good news is that it doen't kill most of the people it infects...

Bad news is that you can then give it to grandma on your next visit and her odds are far worse.

So what do we do?

People are out there protesting.

They are out there in large crowds.

What can we do?

Police power will only get you so far.

Laws aren't enough...

We need consistent messaging.

A PR campaign like no other.

We've been successful on this in the past, as my co-author @meganranney points out.

People smoke less. They wear seatbelts.

Why? Good health PR campaigns.

But it took TIME. And we don't have TIME.

We need the federal government to be VERY consistent with the messaging.

It can't be "liberate!" one day and "don't open too soon" the next.

We also need people to understand that these mitigation strategies are not just about protecting yourself. It's for your relatives too.

We know that opening too soon means that a lot of young health people will get the virus.

Fortunately, the death rate will be lower in this group.

But not low enough. And certainly the real risk is that a couple weeks later it creeps back into the population still sheltering.

So, opening now, with these numbers...

it's a huge risk.

The economy needs to restart. I get that. Lives can be lost from that.

What concerns us is that if we re-open now, and have to CLOSE AGAIN in a few weeks, that could cause a huge paralysis for our economy...

One that's even harder to bounce back from.

People in these states will have felt LIED to by their governments if re-opening turns out to have been unsafe.

They won't believe them "next time." And we will have an even harder time re-opening.

All except the funeral industry :(

In conclusion, this virus spreads asymptomatically.

We must realize that WE healthy folk are the silent killers of the elderly and vulnerable. Until case loads are WAY down, we are playing roulette with the lives of our families.

We must re-open safely, and in phases.

For more, read my essay with @meganranney in @Slate
slate.com/technology/202…

And memorize this chart by the brilliant @joshuasweitz of Georgia Tech.

This chart will go down in history as THE THING PEOPLE JUST DID NOT GET.

fin.