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Originally Posted by oeb11
Tiny - Thank You for thoughtful discourse - the coronavirus has been politicized as a weapon against Trump by the dems - desperate for a recession as their only weapon again st him in the nov election.
HIV - IMHO- is not a good analogy - HIV is treatable - not curable - but is not spread by cough droplets - but by sexual contact or needle use - much easier to contact trace than "who has been within 6 feet of you in the last two weeks". HIV infected remain infective - unless their viral load is reduced by meds to zero - and I remain skeptical that virus does not remain and is not possibly infective even under that circumstance.
Wuhan virus cannot be treated to make a person non-infective - a short ( usually couple of weeks) course of the progress of viral disease produces antibodies to resolve the infection - just as with a common cold coronavirus. HIV remains for life.
yes - an individual with HIV who infects another individual during sexual contact or with needles without disclosing their HIV infection - in many states has committed a serious crime. State laws may vary.
Should individuals with wuhan virus infection be fined for being in public - first define when a person with the virus infection is infectious - when are they shedding virus and putting other people at risk - Likely the period most at risk of sheddinig virus is very early in the stage of infection - when most people are minimally symptomatic and know NOT that they are infectious. .
I think it unfair to criminalize people who know not their infectious status - not can a person's medical status of infectiousness be medically proven across the population of America. There are not facilities to do viral cultures on the entire American population.
I wish i shared your confidence that a vaccine will arrive - but I do not think it can happen within a year. Please refer to the thalidomide debacle in Europe before folks go picketing the FDA to relax standards of safety for medications and vaccines. ( not directed at u - i think u are more level headed than that).
Given that the infected and undiagnosed cohort is unmeasurable in America - I think it is larger than given estimates - and suspect we will see 50% infections rate - a level for her immunity - already in some areas in America. NY City - they are so tightly packed in and close contact unavoidable with transport systems that I think a 75-80% infection rate is required for her immunity. That plus the dumbass mayor and governor they have making things worse.
Anyway - good discussion - i do not think we have accurate or available enough testing to effect reasonable contact tracing - nor an accurate enough definition of course of disease and infectivity status to reasonably take contact tracing identified people off the streets for quarantine with any confidence that the action positively affects public health.
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As I understand it they don't try to contact trace people who've spent a few minutes around an infected person, as probability of transmission isn't that high. In my community they average 10 contacts per infected person. Also, no one in this country is trying to use cell phones and the like to contact trace.
You wouldn't necessarily have to criminalize behavior to make contact tracing work. While I've been wrong about peoples' willingness to wear masks, in Texas at least, I believe most people who are made aware that they have the infection as a result of testing after tracing would isolate themselves without the threat of being penalized. Many or perhaps most would also isolate between the time they're contacted and when they get the test results back.
As you noted transmitting HIV under certain conditions in certain states is a serious crime. Not only that, but there are crimes like possession of drugs and prostitution where arguably you're not putting anyone in danger except yourself, but many people are jailed for committing them. If you had fines to enforce isolation at home from the time a person tests positive to the time they test negative or, if you want to be more nebulous, until symptoms are gone, that would be a good idea IMHO. Yeah, it does go against Libertarian philosophy, but I think it's merited under current conditions.
As to the first point in your post, Democrats weaponizing the coronavirus and Trump's re-election prospects, what if you're wrong as to how this epidemic will progress? If cities and states do a good job of contact tracing, it may (should in my opinion) reduce the number of coronavirus cases significantly over what they'd be otherwise. This will have positive effects on the economy. People will have more confidence about getting out in public, and cities and states will be less inclined to impose more lockdowns. That's good for Trump. And how much does tracing cost? A drop in the bucket compared to what this pandemic is costing us.
On the other hand, say you're right. We progress steadily towards herd immunity with more and more of the population infected and more people dying from the disease. Say Trump were to discourage contact tracing, which he's not going to do. (Actually he's doing the opposite, he's encouraging it, although not as much as I'd like him to.) If he did, he'd give the Democrats that much more ammo to come after him. Many are blaming the crisis on Trump and ignoring the role of the CDC, the FDA, certain governors and mayors, etc. Discouraging contact tracing would give them something concrete to point to, that would go against the advice of most epidemiologists and public health experts.
