COVID-19 Interest Group
April 7, 2020
CIG BULLETIN #6
Dear Rotarians,
The Greater Bay Area COVID-19 Summary - Arlin Peters
As of Sunday April 5, the Greater Bay Area (GBA) had 3623 confirmed COVID-19 cases or 529 cases per million (cpm). We are not a national hot spot like NYC which has ~7900 cpm, or 15 times more than our local area. The GBA doubling time (DT) has been steadily increasing from 4 days two weeks ago, to 9 days on Sunday. This is due to everybody’s diligent hygiene and social distancing behavior.
Using a continued increasing DT, I estimate that in two weeks, April 19, the GBA cumulative confirmed cases will be about 8800. Assuming that confirmed (tested positive) cases are only 10-15% of the total actual number of cases, I estimate that up to 1.7% of the population will have been infected by then. This is really a best guess-timate - since we don’t know actual cases very well – so on April 19, the percent infected will probably be in the range of 0.2 to 2%.
For more information, please visit www.berkeleyrotary.org and/or go to Arlin’s Corner in the COVID-19 tab.
A Roadmap to Reopening - reference to an article by Dr. Scott Gottlieb
In our battle to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 and follow the rules, we are inundated with tragic stories, and hardships that are inflicted on everyone. Is it working? Arlin tells us yes! There are early signs that it is. Making the presumption that it will succeed keeps us hopeful and leads us to think about what comes next. Where do we go from here? What is the plan for bringing this pandemic under control? When will life begin to move towards normal? There has not been much said about the next phase yet we have heard enough to think we can put together a sketch of it. When the curve of new cases descends and social distancing and hygienic policies bring the new case rates down to near zero, what is next?
Attached is a paper brought to my attention by Pamela Doolan. Here, a roadmap is laid down in detail and I think it is consistent with what I have heard and read from Dr Anthony Fauci and others. The next phase involves incremental release of restrictions and containment by identifying and managing any out breaks by identifying the source and the contacts and isolating them. It requires massive testing capabilities and fierce efforts to identify contacts, and an ability to quarantine. It is a method that has a track record and works and requires a large public health work force. If you look at the descriptions in the article you do get a sense of how it might be done.
Remember, it is only a roadmap and there will likely be many innovations and permutations along the way. Where will the road take us? Hopefully, there will be vaccines and treatments that will protect us. Let’s keep the faith.—Pate Thomson
Do check this out: https://www.aei.org/resrch-products/report/national-coronavirus-response-a-road-map-to-reopening/