Frontier Research is going to be working almost fully remote for some time. This is the reason why.
According to a report released on the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention website on 18th March, this is what the numbers looked like for the U.S. from February 12th to March 16th.
- Rate of hospitalization required for the reported cases was 20.7–31.4%
- Rate of ICU admissions was 4.9–11.5%
*Explanation for range is given at the end of the post
But like in many other countries, in Sri Lanka too we only have so many hospital and intensive care beds and ventilators.
So, numbers matter and that’s where #FlattenTheCurve comes in. It means pulling out all the stops to try to slow the spread of the disease. If we can spread the number of people who contract the disease over a longer period of time, then we’ll have enough beds and ventilators for everyone who needs them.
In Sri Lanka however, relative to many countries, we may still be at an early stage of the outbreak based on the data available and that means we have an option beyond #FlattenTheCurve. That is, to #StopTheSpread.
Taiwan, Singapore, and South Korea are examples of those who made notable efforts to #StopTheSpread. They’ve all used slightly different strategies which we can learn from. But they acted quickly, with no half measures. The important thing for any country that is able to #StopTheSpread is to not become complacent about it at any point.
While the government is taking very hard decisions, we believe we should do our own part to #StopTheSpread by choosing to work completely remotely.
* Lower bound of range = number of persons hospitalized, admitted to ICU, or who died among total in age group; upper bound of range = number of persons hospitalized, admitted to ICU, or who died among total in age group with known hospitalization status, ICU admission status, or death. Source: cdc.gov
