March 24, 2020 Editor

Coronavirus: The Hammer and the Dance

What the Next 18 Months Can Look Like, if Leaders Buy Us Time

Tomas Pueyo

Mar 19–29 min read

WN: This is an immensely important paper, one that every politician in any way connected to the COVID-19 outbreak in the world should be reading–outside a handfull of countries that have already implemented the policies compellingly (with a vast array of data parlayed into myriad charts) presented in the highlighted article.

excerpts:

Here is a link to a resource page on handwashing. — from training materials for Certified Nursing Assistants, One of the skills that CNAs must demonstrate properly before being certified is handwashing.

This article follows Coronavirus: Why You Must Act Now, with over 40 million views and 30 translations. If you agree with this article, consider signing the corresponding White House petition. Translations available in 27 languages at the bottom. Running list of endorsements here. 5 million views so far.

Summary of the article: Strong coronavirus measures today should only last a few weeks, there shouldn’t be a big peak of infections afterwards, and it can all be done for a reasonable cost to society, saving millions of lives along the way. If we don’t take these measures, tens of millions will be infected, many will die, along with anybody else that requires intensive care, because the healthcare system will have collapsed.

Within a week, countries around the world have gone from: “This coronavirus thing is not a big deal” to declaring the state of emergency. Yet many countries are still not doing much. Why?

Every country is asking the same question: How should we respond? The answer is not obvious to them.

Some countries, like France, Spain or Philippines, have since ordered heavy lockdowns. Others, like the US, UK, or Switzerland, have dragged their feet, hesitantly venturing into social distancing measures.

Here’s what we’re going to cover today, again with lots of charts, data and models with plenty of sources:

  1. What’s the current situation?
  2. What options do we have?
  3. What’s the one thing that matters now: Time
  4. What does a good coronavirus strategy look like?
  5. How should we think about the economic and social impacts?

When you’re done reading the article, this is what you’ll take away:

Our healthcare system is already collapsing.
Countries have two options: either they fight it hard now, or they will suffer a massive epidemic.
If they choose the epidemic, hundreds of thousands will die. In some countries, millions.
And that might not even eliminate further waves of infections.
If we fight hard now, we will curb the deaths.
We will relieve our healthcare system.
We will prepare better.
We will learn.
The world has never learned as fast about anything, ever.
And we need it, because we know so little about this virus.
All of this will achieve something critical: Buy Us Time.

If we choose to fight hard, the fight will be sudden, then gradual.
We will be locked in for weeks, not months.
Then, we will get more and more freedoms back.
It might not be back to normal immediately.
But it will be close, and eventually back to normal.
And we can do all that while considering the rest of the economy too.

Ok, let’s do this.

Share the Word

Unfortunately, millions of lives are still at stake. Share this article—or any similar one—if you think it can change people’s opinion. Leaders need to understand this to avert a catastrophe. The moment to act is now.


If you agree with this article and want the US Government to take action, please sign the White House petition to implement a Hammer-and-Dance Suppression strategy.

Buy Us Time to Fight the Coronavirus and Save Millions of Lives with a Hammer-and-Dance Suppression…

Our healthcare system is collapsing. It will only get worse. Mitigation-“flattening the curve”-isn’t enough. We must…

petitions.whitehouse.gov

If you are an expert in the field and want to criticize or endorse the article or some of its parts, feel free to leave a private note here or contextually and I will respond or address.

If you want to translate this article, do it on a Medium post and leave me a private note here with your link. Here are the translations currently available:

Spanish (verified by author, full translation inc. charts)(alt. vs. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
French (translated by an epidemiologist)
Chinese Traditional (
full translation including charts, alternative translation)
Chinese Simplified
German
Portuguese (alternative version)
Russian
Italian
Japanese
Vietnamese
Turkish
Polish
Icelandic (alternative translation)
Greek
Bahasa Indonesia
Bahasa Malaysia
Farsi (alternative version outside of Medium)
Czech (alternative translation)
Dutch
Norwegian
Hebrew
Ukrainian (alternative version)
Swedish
Romanian
Bulgarian
Catalonian
Slovak
Filipino

This article has been the result of a herculean effort by a group of normal citizens working around the clock to find all the relevant research available to structure it into one piece, in case it can help others process all the information that is out there about the coronavirus.

Special thanks to Dr. Carl Juneau (epidemiologist and translator of the French version), Dr. Brandon Fainstad, Pierre Djian, Jorge Peñalva, John Hsu, Genevieve Gee, Elena Baillie, Chris Martinez, Yasemin Denari, Christine Gibson, Matt Bell, Dan Walsh, Jessica Thompson, Karim Ravji, Annie Hazlehurst, and Aishwarya Khanduja. This has been a team effort.

Thank you also to Berin Szoka, Shishir Mehrotra, QVentus, Illumina, Josephine Gavignet, Mike Kidd, and Nils Barth for your advice. Thank you to my company, Course Hero, for giving me the time and freedom to focus on this.

Stay on top of the pandemic

Stay current with comprehensive, up-to-the-minute information, all in one place, at the new Medium Coronavirus Blog. Sign up for our Coronavirus newsletter here.

Thanks to Tito Hubert, Genevieve Gee, Pierre Djian, Jorge Peñalva, and Matt Bell.

Tomas Pueyo

Written by

2 MSc in Engineering. Stanford MBA. Ex-Consultant. Creator of viral applications with >20M users. Currently leading a billion-dollar business @ Course Hero

Please click on: The Hammer and the Dance

 

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Editor

Wayne Northey was Director of Man-to-Man/Woman-to-Woman – Restorative Christian Ministries (M2/W2) in British Columbia, Canada from 1998 to 2014, when he retired. He has been active in the criminal justice arena and a keen promoter of Restorative Justice since 1974. He has published widely on peacemaking and justice themes. You will find more about that on this website: a work in progress.

Always appreciate constructive feedback! Thanks.