Tracking Infection
“Tracking Infection” was originally published at City Journal.
While state and local officials bear most of the responsibility for policies related to Covid-19 within their jurisdictions, new federal guidelines promulgated by President Trump establish an important national standard for how to organize society during a pandemic.“The President’s Coronavirus Guidelines for America,” released on March 16, stress the importance of working and engaging in schooling from home; avoiding social gatherings of more than ten people; and refraining from eating or drinking at bars, restaurants, and food courts for the ensuing 15 days. The guidance has now been extended through April.
The goal of these restrictions is to slow the transmission of the coronavirus while increasing availability and accessibility of testing. Certain areas—infection hotspots—are experiencing high numbers of cases per 100,000 people and an exponential growth in cases, threatening to inundate local health-care systems and overwhelm health-care personnel. It’s well documented that widespread testing is not occurring, limiting our epidemiological understanding of the infection. At this point, it is unclear which other areas in the country might soon emerge as hotspots (though New Orleans looks likely).
The most effective means of interrupting transmission, of course, is to develop and deploy a vaccine that, by providing high levels of immunity, prevents an uninfected person from acquiring the virus from an infected person. By blocking transmission, vaccines not only prevent infection and complications; they also prevent one person from infecting many others. Unfortunately, we are at least a year away from having a vaccine for Covid-19.
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