After a few weeks, what would happen is what happened in other countries. In many countries, the R dropped to .3. Let’s say in the US it dropped to .5.

If you have 60,000 cases in your community, in 50 days, it would drop to 58.
6000 becomes 6.
600 becomes 1.

19/

How does that work? Some of the fancy people call this “exponential decay.” I call it #Zachsmath. Explained here.

Or just multiply 60,000 x .5. And then .5 again until you do it 10 times. Like Zach does. And other high schoolers. 20/ https://twitter.com/aslavitt/status/1287161301421174786

So after 8 weeks, you don’t have 0 cases but you have embers.

A small enough number that someone in the health department in a big city could call them on the phone in one morning.

In a small city, you could feed them w 2 large pizzas.

In a small town, it would be Earl. 21/

Earl was my dad’s name. He grew up in a small isolated town. He never loved the name but I like it a lot now.

In this case Earl would be fine because everybody would bring him soup and check in on him. 22/

Then what? You know how we don’t have enough tests? We would have plenty.

Plenty to test everyone going into work, to school, to church, to an event. And if there’s a stray case or a dozen, we would find it in a day. 23/

Becsuse we would get the tests back the same day, we could very easily let everybody who had been around Earl the last few days know they should get a test.

And if anybody tests positive, they would isolate, either at home or if there’s not enough room, in a hotel. 24/

All the PPE we keep running out of? We would have way too much. Ventilators? Way too many.

People who have suffered mental health crises? They could begin to deal with them.

The light at the end of the tunnel would be blinding. 25/

The man who cured small pox & is the greatest expert I know, @larrybrilliant, puts it this way:

26/ https://twitter.com/lemonadamedia/status/1286000848645038080

Would we be done at this point? Sadly not. Outbreaks can happen if you’re not paying attention.

But before you get horrified, look at the units. These are in the hundreds. Even if an outbreak was 5000 across the US, we would have more than enough testing & contact tracing.27/

Whether we do this or not, let’s not pretend this isn’t an option.

This is done mostly with the things we were born with or are very low tech. The ability not to breath on people. A mask. Common sense. (Yes I’m beginning to recognize the flaw.) 28/

And while we do this, what else happens? Well our nurses & doctors can catch their breath, recover & go back to healing our other issues. We hug our parents again. Our scientists can work on vaccines they can get right & safe. They can be speedy without rushing. 29/

We still take precautions. Masks in larger settings. In elevators. Around sick people. Because we care.

It will take a while for societal norms like these to develop but we can operate the way we did with tobacco control & build the norm. 30/

Communities would have green, yellow, orange & red days so we would know how to take precautions. Both before and after a vaccine. For as long as necessary.

We could manage the illness by exception not with a broad brush. 31/

The cost of this has been & continues to be 6-8 weeks of your life. This would disrupt the rest of your summer.

But of the 4000 weeks of your life, it’s a fraction of a percent so that many more can have many more weeks. 32/

Does a vaccine make this unnecessary? Unless it’s a 100% effective & everyone takes it, no.

But that may be the wrong way to look at it. A vaccine just makes this easier to do. It allows more people to circulate with the same positive impact. It’s a tool not a panacea. 33/

Hear everything you need to know about a vaccine here. 34/ http://Smarturl.it/inthebubble 

The major objection to all this? People who think this infringes on their “rights.”

But on the way to Walmart, they had to drive 30 mph. They couldn’t park in a handicapped space. And they can’t just eat the cheese balls in the store. Their rights can’t harm others. 35/

These people are freer than they would be anywhere on the planet. We proudly allow people to march, protest, or wear a Nazi flag as a scarf that doesn’t match their outfit. 36/

Herd immunity is just herd thinning. And that assumes we understand how immunity works. Which we don’t.

I’m not willing to lose 500,000 mostly older & low income people. And subjecting 10s of millions to chronic illness to protect a right you didn’t know you had 3 months ago.37/

We will do this. There is no other way. The question is when. The question is who will convince us. The question is the leadership it takes.

But there’s not much question if we should. /end

Again, I apologize for the ridiculous length of this thread. If you’re reading this far, have a great evening. -Andy