If less than 1% of the rioters got the Coronavirus, then the lockdown should end.
Noo... (*slowmo no*
) Lockdown ends based on 'new infections rate'. And a deliberation on how long the lockdown already has been going on.
It already pretty much ended where I'm from (with some notable exceptions (mass events), borders still not open with certain countries, facemasks mandatory still in some places in public) so we've been through it.
In most western countries Covid-19 infections were limited to, at most, 1-3% of population so far. What 'flattened the curve' was people changing behavior in a mixture of forced and voluntary.
When you say 'only one percent has it, so wayne' you are thinking linearly, the virus propagation curve - if people 'behave entirely like before the start of the crisis' is exponential though.
If one percent of your population 'actively spread it', you are basically effed.
Luckily 1% of your population 'had it' and 'have it', with many of it on the 'had it' side, which means its active in far less than one percent of your population, and the majority of that isnt spreading it anymore, thanks to the lockdown and facemasks (facemasks is 'spreading it less').
Remember, this all ends when infections have reached 60-70% of population, or when a vaccine is widely distributed, or when a good treatment is available. Not before. The rest is just 'a game in regards to how to get there'. Lockdown helps very much, because you let most of the people become healthy again on their own, or in hospitals (while absolute numbers hopefully are still low), while you are reducing spread extremely harshly (look at daily new infection graphs in the other thread). Issue: You cant do lockdown for half a year, or two years. Not even for three months consecutively.
So you will be talking about 'easing lock downs' down to the point where you'd not see them as lockdowns anymore, but you'd still have modified behavior patterns in some social situations, but that only happens - normally, when daily new infection rates are so low, that you can somewhat track individual cases manually. Mostly because its better to get them really, really low, so you have some leeway, before infection rate explodes again, if your public doesn something not so good for the propagation, like rioting without facemasks..
Also - going by what you can see in the difference between excess mortality in the US overall, and f.e. in NYC - while some of the US will almost live like there is no Covid-19 epidemic out there, certain cities, for a long time, will not.
That doesnt mean endless lockdowns and curfews though.
Those always are time limited to 'as close to three months as you can get..
', if at all - with the severity of the virus we are talking about. (edit: Actually pretty much regardless of severity, because 'damage to the economy' is so large..
)
Basically there are other points where you could argue, why the reaction might have been 'too harsh' (in the US less so..
), but 'because only 1% of population have it' is not one...
Luckily, far less than 1% of population cases are currently 'active' in the US. And 'modified behavior' (mass gatherings) is what keeps that in check or not. (Until better treatment or a vaccine is found, or 60% of population got infected, but slowly.
NYC had a deathrate 7x the normal one as hospitals became overtaxed, even if thats 'only old people', thats no joke.)
edit: Here is the 'only 1% of population has it' calculation for a growth rate of 33% (infection number doubles every 3 days)
If 33% daily growth rate continues, you have 18 days until everyone has it..
(You can play with it here:
https://www.rapidtables.com/calc/math/exponential-growth-calculator.html )
Luckily sustaining 33% daily growth rate is hard.
And joking aside you are no where near that growth rate anymore - according to your testing, even if you only test 1/3 of everyone else in the world..
But you were, at one point in time. We all were. At least according to positive test results we saw.
('Bunching up effects')
edit: Also, people would not have been infectious for all of those 18 days. As we now know, they only are highly infectious for a few days (afair 3-5), and then less infectious for the subsequent two weeks. That way, 33% daily growth rate isnt sustainable..
edit: Current rate of active cases doubling is about 2 months, so an average daily growth rate of about 1% (during that period) and declining.
But lets look at the calculation IF, the daily growth rate would remain at 1% (which it will not, it will progressively come down, until it is not a problem anymore.).
Then in two years, everyone in the US would have it..
Thats starting with 1% of your population being infected and a growth rate of 1% per day.
Real daily growth rate currently should be about 0.17% (worldwide) hopefully still declining. You can fill in those values into the calculator yourself.
Exponential means, it can become a problem pretty quickly, but problem also goes away pretty quickly, if you do something thats effective. (Stop the exponential growth potential harshly, and then in a more sustained fashion, less harshly (at already a lower rate).)
edit: Funny aside - best treatment so far seem to be antibodies from blood plasma donors. So what might/will be helping to solve this, is poor populations donating blood. That 'industry' in the US is effed up beyond believe, but now potentially a valuable part of whats saving the day. Funny how that works..
(But also kind of explains, why politics is not left in the hands of science, at least not entirely..
)