Jimmy,
I was perplexed by "2 week" closures too. My thought was, "What good is 2 weeks going to do?"
Here is a public health article and visual that explains the strategy. The goal of the "containment" strategies so far (cruise ships quarantined off shore or passengers held on military bases for 2 weeks) were to delay the spread until resources could be setup (test kits, additional supplies, hospital prep). "Containment" is pretty much over since nearly every state has at least 1 case and the reports are climbing daily.
The goal of the 2 week closure/suspension of large groups of people is to delay and stretch out the rapid increase in new cases. Restricting large groups will prevent mass exposures happening at once. New cases will continue due to community spread during the 2 weeks, but you won't get a huge spike early on. That is what Italy is dealing with now; large number of people getting sick at once, overwhelming healthcare resources.
The image below represents that. This is from the
article I referenced above. Without any stoppage of large group gatherings, there will be a rapid expansion of new cases (solid purple below). I drew in the red line, but it represents the capability of the healthcare systems to handle sick people. The 2 week suspension in large gatherings is intended to delay large groups of people becoming sick at the same time and keeping the total sick at one time under the red line. The same number of people may get sick, but not all at the same time (hash mark curve below). Ideally, this 2 week moratorium will keep the volume of sick under the red line and at a manageable rate.
People will get sick from this in large numbers. Some will die (
similar populations that die from the flu each year- estimated at 22,000+ just in the US for this years flu, so far).
Remember, COVID-19 is very similar to influenza in how sick it makes people, the types of symptoms (fever, respirator issues) and
most people will not need to seek medical attention for their symptoms.
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