At this stage of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, we have passed the point of containment. That is, if “containment” means keeping the coronavirus out of some countries or populations. The Wuhan coronavirus has been found in people in 58 countries (with a few more reporting in every day), on every continent except Antarctica. The virus appears to spread among people without symptoms of COVID-19 disease, a feature that largely doomed containment efforts from the start.

But a very important thing for everyone to understand is, failure of full containment does not mean total loss or surrender. Yes, the virus may well circulate through a large percentage of the population, most of whom will either be unaware or mildly ill. The key strategy now is to slow down that spread, to avoid overwhelming the health care system.

This excellent figure (from an excellent article in The Economist, Feb. 29, 2020, originally created by the illustrious US Centers for Disease Control) illustrates the point. If the no effort is made to slow contagion, you get a peak like the first one, with the largest number of sick people descending on hospitals over a short period of time. This is bad.

Social distancing means all the things we do to stay physically apart from one another, from avoiding handshakes to shutting down a subway system. The goal of these measures is to shift to the second curve. In this scenario, even if the same number of people ultimately contract COVID-19, they are dispersed over time making it easier for hospitals to treat them.

So if you feel that public health efforts are hopeless because the virus is already here, think again. Many infections may be inevitable, but many deaths may not be.

Get the scientific backstory on SARS-CoV-2 and emerging infections. Read my ebook “The Coming Pandemic” for free.

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