A: The pandemic offensive line has 5 players: social distancing, testing, isolation, contact tracing, and treatment. The goal is to find the virus, trap it, and prevent it from finding other hosts (people) and harming them.
Social distancing makes it harder for the virus to find the next host, but doesn’t tell us where the virus lives. All alone, social distancing is really the defensive line.
Testing flags the positive cases. With COVID-19, this is very important as many positive cases are asymptomatic allowing this creepy virus to hide and spread.
Isolation of positive cases, many of whom you would never find without testing, prevents further spread of the virus.
Contact tracing tracks all the people who have come into contact with positive cases. These individuals are then tested and isolated as appropriate so clusters of new infections are unable to sprout.
Last, treatment systems are designed and implemented to address the needs of the sick, the asymptomatic but isolated, and those at risk of infection.
You can’t win the fight with just a defensive line (social distancing) and you need investment and planning in the offensive line to beat the rival, COVID-19.
The stakes are high because this is not a game. Read this great article for more on what is REQUIRED to get ahead of this opponent.
