How the pandemic will end: The US may end up with the worst COVID-19 outbreak in the industrialized world. This is how it’s going to play out

This is hands down the best article I have read on CoronaVirus.

That a biomedical powerhouse like the U.S. should so thoroughly fail to create a very simple diagnostic test was, quite literally, unimaginable.

Partly, that’s because the White House is a ghost town of scientific expertise.

“The U.S. may end up with the worst outbreak in the industrialized world.”

To avert it, four things need to happen—and quickly.

The first and most important is to rapidly produce masks, gloves, and other personal protective equipment.

These measures will take time, during which the pandemic will either accelerate beyond the capacity of the health system or slow to containable levels. Its course—and the nation’s fate—now depends on the third need, which is social distancing

the second pressing need: a massive rollout of COVID-19 tests.

These measures will take time, during which the pandemic will either accelerate beyond the capacity of the health system or slow to containable levels. Its course—and the nation’s fate—now depends on the third need, which is social distancing.

In these moments, when the good of all hinges on the sacrifices of many, clear coordination matters—the fourth urgent need

Even a perfect response won’t end the pandemic... there are three possible endgames: one that’s very unlikely, one that’s very dangerous, and one that’s very long.

The first is that every nation manages to simultaneously bring the virus to heel, as with the original SARS in 2003.

The second is that the virus does what past flu pandemics have done: It burns through the world and leaves behind enough immune survivors that it eventually struggles to find viable hosts.

The third scenario is that the world plays a protracted game of whack-a-mole with the virus... This is the best option, but also the longest and most complicated.... It’s likely, then, that the new coronavirus will be a lingering part of American life for at least a year, if not much longer.

Much about the coming years, including the frequency, duration, and timing of social upheavals, depends on two properties of the virus, both of which are currently unknown. First: seasonality. Second: duration of immunity.

COVID-19 may become like the flu is today—a recurring scourge of winter.

The cost of reaching that point, with as few deaths as possible, will be enormous.

After infections begin ebbing, a secondary pandemic of mental-health problems will follow.

The lessons that America draws from this experience are hard to predict

One could easily conceive of a world in which most of the nation believes that America defeated COVID-19... turns further inward... builds actual and figurative walls, and disinvests in other nations.

One could also envisage a future in which America learns a different lesson... The nation pivots, as it did after World War II, from isolationism to international cooperation....The U.S. leads a new global partnership focused on solving challenges like pandemics and climate change.

President Obama shared this one on Facebook, it is very sobering.