– Dual Visions © 2020. All rights reserved.
The greatest risc for spreading the disease is by people not aware of the fact that they have Covid-19. Since young people appear to be less effected by Covid-19, it is to be expected that especially young people will not have any symptoms. And it is also young people who often likes to be socially active, go parties and in generally enjoy interacting with other people at bars, fitness centers, and other such places which may act as hotspots for spreading Covid-19. But beacuse those people without any symptoms will have no incentive to get tested, then it appears to be a great risk connected with opening such places.
However, banning those places may cause stress for those who enjoy using them, and it may not prevent people from meeting other people. They may instead attempt to meet in private places or where they hope not to be noticed. So if the society opened up for those hotspots, then the society would have a great opportunity to come in control with the spread of Covid-19. Because it would then be possible to ensure that only those people whom have been tested negative for the last 7 days is permitted access to those places!
You may think that it is quite a lot to expect that the society should have the ressources to test everybody in just 7 days, but far less can actually do it. First of all, then it is not all in the society which needs to be tested every 7 days. The main issue is to get those which enjoyes being socially active tested. Let’s say that one out of 5 in the society has a great need to be socially active. Secondly, the opportunity of being socially active in one week within the last 4 weeks could probably also work just fine for most people. And in that case, then the society would only need to test 1 out of 140 people in the society to be able to test about all people whom enjoy being socially active (7x5x4=140) .
So if the society opened some of those hotspots for everybody who has been tested negative within the last 7 days, then it would give a great incentive for all those socially active people to get themself tested at regular basis. And THAT would most likely be a great benefit for the society!
Opening the society can therefore be used to fight Covid-19!
Categories: Reflection
Tags: corona, covid-19, society
5 replies ›
Leave a Reply to Dual Visions Cancel reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Northern Dragon 
A plausible possibility but would social distancing still apply I those establishments? It may give the patrons a sense of security in their health to slacken off in distancing measures there and in the rest of their life. I wonder if young people would still patronise those hotspots. My kids are now disinclined to go anywhere with crowds now. Even the local supermarkets if people are not complying with social distancing.
LikeLike
Just because you have been tested within the last 7 days do of course not stop the disease totally from spreading. But even people may want to keep social distancing, people may still want to go to fitness centres, indoor swimming, etc. Whether such locations are open do of course depend on the rules of the society. But by enforcing that access is only granted if you have tested negative within the last 7 days would give an incitament for people to get tested continiously and thus give an splendid opportunity to catch some of those which have Covid-19 without having symptoms and which otherwise would not be tested.
More detailed calculations and measurement of this idea would probably reveal if the benefit by catching those without symptoms would outweigh the disadvantages. But a “7 day test pass” would surely be better than opening up for such places without any restrictions at all.
LikeLike
Mass-scale testing and contact tracing are the keys to breaking the chain of transmission. I’m not in love with the idea of opening up social venues, but we can certainly agree about the testing. The problem–at least for the UK–is that the testing that’s being done so far is farcical–tests lost, appointments canceled after people get themselves there, tests only being available in distant locations. It all hinges on setting up testing in some sane way, and quite possibly on a new, more effective test.
LikeLike
A regular systematic test of the entire population would of course be far better. But for those societies where this option is not possible, then a partiel semi-structured test strategy as proposed here could possibly be better than just testing people which have symptoms (which of course still has to be done anyhow).
LikeLike
People have to fight Covid-19! To follow all established rules. Do not forget about social distancing! In such a way, we will be safe and healthy.
LikeLike