Read on Twitter
Place-based nature of COVID-19 transmission might point the way forward for Ontario, on getting as close as we can to elimination. Would need ramped up testing, better resourced contact tracing, QR code readers, and genotyping of strains.
But we could imagine places/activities plotted on a 2-D plane...economic value on one axis, and vulnerability to (aerosol) transmission events (closed, close, crowded, continuous exposure).
It might look something like this:
On the left hand side of this plane are activities that confer very little risk...outdoor activities, activities that we can engage in without leaving our bubbles.
Even if they're without economic value...no risk. Do 'em!
Even if they're without economic value...no risk. Do 'em!
The placement of these activities on my plane is arbitrary and not data based. I think outdoor parks are valuable in terms of mental health; restaurant patios confer minimal risk, work-from-home (as many of us can do) is valuable and minimal risk.
There are other activities that are extremely important for viability of our society, and which need to be maintained. We need to eat...food processing plants provide a supply of affordable food that sustains us. They aren't negotiable and we have to keep them open.
So they stay open too, even though they confer vulnerability. But now we can start to imagine a diagonal line that goes from bottom left to top right and defines what we open and close.
Clearly we don't want to be dealing with a ton of disease from those must-open, can't-close venues (and I suspect we'll see schools play out in the upper right in the coming weeks). What do we do?
That's where we focus the tools in our toolbox: enhanced ventilation, hi-throughput saliva testing, use of QR codes so contact tracing is facilitated if we have superspreader events (shaded area). That allows us to have the best of both worlds: economic activity & relative safety
Here's where it gets a bit more contentious: what about the stuff south-east of that threshold? We don't have a karaoke-, strip-club-, or casino-based economy. Those are nice-to-have, not need-to-have. But those are people's livelihoods.
I think that's where you focus compensation efforts...
This nets out, societally, by allowing our more impactful economic activities to escape lockdowns. Again, not to single out strip clubs, but that seems like an example of a business that one might pay to stay closed.
This nets out, societally, by allowing our more impactful economic activities to escape lockdowns. Again, not to single out strip clubs, but that seems like an example of a business that one might pay to stay closed.
This is again, arbitrary.
It's twitter. This is not an NBER working paper.
And this is not meant to be static. What if we get better at control? Easy, we shift our threshold south, open more.
It's twitter. This is not an NBER working paper.
And this is not meant to be static. What if we get better at control? Easy, we shift our threshold south, open more.
Similarly, the calendar months may force us in the other direction. A seasonally-juiced R0 may force us to close places that we can open in the warmer months.
So...I'm sure there are issues/problems I haven't thought of, and this is undoubtedly imperfect, but I offer it as a framework that might permit a bit more organized, comprehensible and outcome-oriented approach to integrating our health and economic priorities.
/end
/end
