Here's the emails that I sent out at noon on March 16th (Monday):
I agree we should cancel open house, sad as that is. I will not be there to make the dinner tomorrow.
I've been doing a lot of research
since I have a lot of time and some science background. Here's
a sort of outline of our future:
[TL;DR: short term we all need to isolate and lockdown. Medium and
longer term are uncertain but mostly depressing and tragic]
Short term: if we maintain a reasonably
strict lockdown for a few weeks (3-9), we can hope to keep the
number of Ontario cases in the low-thousands. Because we've acted
quickly compared to our confirmed cases, and our testing has been
decent. That count is low enough to not overwhelm our healthcare
system, hopefully. I AM a bit terrified about all of the
Canadians returning from abroad; hopefully the vast majority of
them manage to self-isolate effectively, otherwise that alone is
likely to doom us to pandemic. The critical numbers to watch will
be cases over the next week or so. You can watch those here:
Lockdown info: The most important thing
you can do personally is to maintain isolation and high hygiene.
Do not go anywhere unless it's required; remain at least 6 feet
from people at all times. Wash hands after touching any public
surface, i.e. always immediately when returning home, and as many
other times as you can practically manage. Do not touch your face
or rub your eyes if your hands are not clean; wash hands before
eating. If you have COVID-19 symptoms (most obviously fever or a
dry, continuous cough), CALL your healthcare provider first (do
not visit them or the hospital unless so instructed!). Super huge
amounts of info here:
https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/03/dont-panic-the-comprehensive-ars-technica-guide-to-the-coronavirus
Medium term: things are looking a lot
more dicey. I'm hoping that Ontario can remain one of the "green
zones" (where the virus/disease is under control in general, vs
"red zones" where it is not), but given our proximity to the USA
(e.g. New York State, one of the worst places right now in terms
of infection count and pathetic political response), maintaining
that status is going to depend on some very tight borders and
massive testing/self-isolation systems (read up on what Korea has
been doing). Realistically we face years of these kinds of
controls, as epidemics spring up and die down all over the world.
Ontario itself will probably go through several lockdown periods,
each caused by a failure to catch a case, which then spreads until
another lockdown is required. There is some hope for effective
treatments and a vaccine which might help reduce the problem 6-18
months from now, but these are by no means certain. Canada has
been acting quickly on that kind of research, which is very
encouraging (
https://cihr-irsc.gc.ca/e/51868.html), though the
total amount of money remains too small IMO.
Long term: A depressing but
somewhat-plausible 3+ years-from-now future is that the disease
has become endemic, like the flu, with dozens of mutating strains,
and eventually everyone gets it, not just once but on a regular
basis; with all that entails for ICU usage and deaths. Your yearly
Coronavirus vaccine shot will be more important than your yearly
flu vaccine shot; good treatments are available so it's probably
not more than 5x worse than the flu (currently it's between
10-500x). It's harder to be an old person, since they are
disproportionately at risk (as if it wasn't already hard enough
being old). The more friendly long-term futures, where this
disease is contained or even eradicated worldwide just seem like
super remote pipe-dreams at this point - how could we possibly get
there from here?
Eric
Followed by an update that evening:
Sorry I missed the call.
Of particular relevance to our open
house, starting at midnight, restaurants are no longer allowed to
serve food on premise, only for take-out and delivery. All people
are supposed to stay home as much as possible.
Canada itself also announced sweeping
new travel restrictions today, which begin on Wednesday. Only
Americans and Canadians will be let in. Nobody with symptoms will
be allowed on flights. All people entering will be forced to
acknowledge that they are being requested to self-quarantine for
14 days. IMO these measures are likely to get considerably
stronger in the next few days. The amount of push back they got
during the Q&A on that "Americans" bit was intense.
Toronto recorded over 20 new cases
today, many of which are community transmission cases. The
epidemic is well underway here now - if we CAUGHT 20 cases, that
means there are likely 10x as many out there uncaught. I cannot
emphasize that previous statement enough, please read it again. As
with all epidemics, the sooner we start serious public health
measures to control transmission, the smaller the epidemic will
be, and also, the shorter the lockdown period will have to be. We
HAVE started measures earlier than almost any other place in North
America. It's still possible for us to keep it to low-thousands of
total cases in Ontario if we complete our lockdown quickly.
Obviously you should get yourself
unofficially to full lock down ASAP; there is no point waiting for
the government to force you do it. We're all in this together.
Eric
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