Scientist Explains What Would Happen If "The US Does Absolutely Nothing And Lets Virus Take Its Course"

If we do nothing, the effects that the novel coronavirus can have on society can be devastating. That’s what the Imperial College London team concluded after running the simulation of likely outcomes in the US and the UK based on different possible strategies we can take. Fortunately, if the right steps are taken, the impact of the disease can be greatly reduced.

Dixie State University history professor Jeremy C. Young took to Twitter and summarized the Imperial College’s findings in an easy to understand way. TL;DR suppressing the virus until a vaccine can be made will save countless lives and is the best strategy.

Young’s Twitter informative thread was immensely popular, getting over 171.8k likes and 90k retweets on Twitter. It also spread to other social media sites, including Imgur, where it got more than 6k upvotes. Young pointed out that if the US were to do nothing, 80 percent of the population would likely get infected and around 2.2 million Americans would die from the virus. However, the death toll would most likely be higher because there would be a shortage of ventilators.

According to the Imperial College team, it will require “multiple interventions” to have a “substantial impact on transmission.”

There are two possible strategies when it comes to fighting Covid-19: mitigation (slowing the epidemic) and suppression (reversing the growth of the epidemic until the creation of a vaccine). Unfortunately, mitigation would still lead to hundreds of thousands of deaths. This leaves us with suppression which is the best option and would save countless lives.

Suppression involves self-isolation, quarantining the infected, closing schools and universities, and taking social distancing to heart. That way, health systems and medical professionals will be able to cope with the strain. The biggest challenge with this strategy is that we would have to keep this up for around 18 or more months until scientists develop a working and safe vaccine.

In other words, if at any time we start relaxing too much and thinking that the strategy is working, we might see another surge in coronavirus cases. So battening down the hatches and waiting for a vaccine is our best bet. What do you think, dear Pandas? Share your thoughts with us in the comments.