Quote:
Originally Posted by zendog3
BTW social distancing and hand washing are will not stop anyone from getting the disease, it will "flatten the curve" or slow the spread
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This is a fundamental misunderstanding of flatten the curve. While the basic model of flattening has as its goal lowering the peak and does not anticipate fewer final cases, models of social distancing accomplish two goals. The goals of
social distancing are to both have fewer people ill at the same time AND have fewer people ultimately become infected. The simplest explanation is if you take a single individual. If she never comes into contact with an adequate exposure, she never gets sick. The way to have her not be exposed involves keeping her away from known and unknown spreaders.
Hand washing obviously reduces the total ill people. It is no different for catching Covid from what your hands touched or catching Salmonella from raw chicken. Hand washing results in decreased transfer of germs from hand to nose, eyes, and mouth.