# Establishing criteria for dealing with pandemics

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/establishing-criteria-for-dealing-with-pandemics/853735>\
**Category:** The Quarantine Zone\
**Tags:** covid-quarantine\
**Created:** [May 13, 2020, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/establishing-criteria-for-dealing-with-pandemics/853735 "2020-05-13T18:21:35Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 37

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**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\
**Post date:** [May 15, 2020, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/establishing-criteria-for-dealing-with-pandemics/853735/37 "2020-05-15T00:46:59Z")

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> [@bump](#):
>
> … Think of it like a fire; is there ever a point when you can put it out “too soon”? Or if it’s still burning, to quit spraying water on it? This is very similar in concept.

I’m not defending **HoneyBadgerDC** ’s position here but your analogy in this case if anything makes his point … yes you do sometimes want smaller natural fires to occur, they tend to be of lower intensity, clearing out shrubs, and reduce the risk of huge conflagrations later. Too much suppression of them is a bad thing. There are also controlled burns that manage a forest by controlling the not only the where and the when of fires but the intensity of the events. Tricky business that.

And certainly there is a time to stop spraying water, when the water is causing more damage than benefit, even before a fire is completely out.

If forest fires are managed they don’t need to be fought so hard and so often.

No one would advocate for letting a forest burn out of control, in a rush, just get it done. That position is even more untenable.

Does the analogy hold? Maybe.

There are cautions out there by experts against thinking that a vaccine is just around the corner bound to put this fire out. [Mike Ryan of the WHO](https://www.marketwatch.com/story/who-officials-grim-outlook-on-covid-19-this-virus-may-never-go-away-2020-05-13) for example -

> [@](#):
>
> Speaking during a virtual news conference from Geneva, Ryan said the world should prepare for the possibility that a vaccine for COVID-19 will not be found. Even if one eventually is developed, it would still take a “massive effort” to distribute it worldwide and control the virus — a “massive moonshot.”
> 
> “It is important to put this on the table: This virus may become just another endemic virus in our communities, and this virus may never go away,” he said. “I think it is important we are realistic and I don’t think anyone can predict when this disease will disappear. I think there are no promises in this and there are no dates. This disease may settle into a long problem, or it may not be.”
> 
> Ryan said that one way or another, humanity may have to learn to cope with COVID-19.

Keeping the brakes fully applied until and if there is a vaccine is not a good plan. Depending on a vaccine as the only path is not a good plan. It is a great hope, but not a plan.

Rushing to herd immunity is not a good plan.

Cautiously finding _the moving point_ that maximally reduces the damages of the interventions while controlling the intensity of disease within the population within some, to be determined, acceptable parameters, hoping for a vaccine but meanwhile trying to advance to a path forward that lives with the disease if that is what the future requires … is not a good plan. It is however _the least poor one_. And that parameter won’t be zero any more than it will be just below healthcare system capacity.

The controlled burn fire analogy may in fact be apt.

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