COVID 19

Unless you live far from Earth we have been facing an epidemic, maybe similar to ones from hundreds of years ago: coronavirus or covid-19
Several countries downplayed the problem until late and now we have thousands of deaths every day worldwide.
Most of us will be wondering when is this over?
I work for a company that is heavily affected (airports), for them business won’t get back to normal until the end of the year or worst case June next year… but every case is different so I wanted to gather some numbers and ideas

After looking some graphs I’m using an oversimplified model:

Time to quasi-normal = 2 x time to peak

With “time to peak” the number of days to reach a peak in active cases and “time to quasi-normal” the days to when crisis is more or less under control, business start opening again, but social distance still in place

If you look at the South Korea numbers, the shape (of active cases) is a triangle with a sharp rise and slow decrease (obviously there are better models but I’m making it simple, for illustration purposes only), if you check the dates, the peak was 21 days after first cases, then 35-42 days afterwards things are more under control (not even normal, just more under control)

So for us in Australia/New Zealand? Some people may argue that we are lucky to be far away, but what really matters is that both governments closed the borders and put lockdown measures earlier, meaning closing non-essential business AND everyone was willing to make sacrifices to avoid spreading the virus and ultimately saving people. Also both governments are helping businesses to keep their employees with money/subsidies. We are almost in the 4th week of lockdown and results are positive
That is similar to what South Korea did, so probably we get back to quasi-normal by May, but only if people keep social distance rules etc.

What would be the case for other countries?

In Italy they downplayed the problem until it was too late. Now after sharp corrections things improved a bit, but still they haven’t reached any peak, so even if the peak of active cases were today that would mean back to quasi-normal maybe in 6 months

Germany is a good example, they have managed the crisis well, however it seems they relaxed a bit too early (see late daily cases increment) so it may take them a bit longer than expected, maybe quasi-normal by June

USA is a large and complex country running on elections mode, the president downplayed the crisis and now the country has the biggest numbers worldwide. From the trends (active cases) they haven’t reached a peak yet and numbers continue growing at rates like 30.000 cases every day! (keep in mind there is not even extensive testing in place)
Things may not get back to quasi-normal any time before June/July, but what it worse, several groups are pushing to reopen the country earlier (the president wanted it open for Easter weekend…) so more waves of cases are probably expected

Finally, Chile, my home country. They are doing it wrong, they put in place localized light quarantine schemes, so people is not quite following. In some cases we read in the news people infected with the virus still organizing and running parties or opening their stores or going to the supermarket!?
Obviously Chile is not close to any peak yet and there is no clear positive trend (see active cases)

You can see the numbers/trends for yourself below, but I guess bottom line would be: please keep social distance, stay home if possible
Is not about the country, place or government – is up to us to make things work

Below a photo from Easter here, playgrounds in this season are usually full of kids running and/or hunting chocolate eggs, but this photo shows playgrounds closed and more importantly: even kids are doing what may be a big sacrifice for them: staying home. Can we learn from them?

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries