Professor Yitzhak Ben-Israel theory that Covid will go away

[AnxiousNoMore]

His theory is not in the mainstream media that I follow and is based solely on his statistical inference from other countries, so it's all analysis of a novel disease in a few countries. Could be coincidental, so we shall see how accurate his model is if states start ending lock downs soon.

[specialmom]

Anxiousnomore, I think most experts feel it will come back.  And some think it has even been here for a while (more people having antibodies than they expected).  Infectious disease even with a novel pathogen often follows patterns.  An outlier scientist may have a theory that differs from the normal model and time will tell.  But I am tending to believe this will be here in the future. We will have to get used to it being around and learn to live with it in our community like we do with other infectious viruses.  I so hope they get to the point of effective vaccine sooner rather than later!

[AnxiousNoMore]

Every expert thinks it will come back. Just like plague and the others, but the next waves are not what the article I posted was about. It just infers that the first wave ends within a relatively fixed time, and doesn't try to predict past that point since there is no second wave data available until it happens.

[Paxiled]

Well, it is happening.  It's happening in Hong Kong, China, and Singapore, for three countries.  Every place that has opened up has had a recurrence of the virus, though not at the levels yet of the original onslaught.  This thing shows no signs yet of going away ever altogether.  Another problem with opening up is that people start traveling again, including into the areas that opened up, bringing back the disease.  All models depend on human behavior. and that's why they are constantly having to be redone.

[AnxiousNoMore]

This article has a kind of lighthearted look at the situation in Israel today and some of the players.
"The terrifying Health Ministry director general Moshe Bar Siman Tov and Prof. Gabi Barbash are out; Prof. Yoram Lass and the new star, Maj. Gen. (res.) Isaac Ben-Israel, are in (after the previous representative of this school of thought, Prof. Michael Levitt, retreated together with his forecast of only 10 deaths). Yesterday’s hero is today’s idiot; the prophet has become a con man. "
https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-sorry-my-complaining-countrymen-but-israel-s-coronavirus-policy-is-working-1.8794581

Basically, no one can have the answers, so we wait and watch the worldwide experiments opening and closing economies - hopefully everyone reading is safe and using social distancing.

[AnxiousNoMore]

https://asiatimes.com/2020/04/israeli-professor-offers-alternate-coronavirus-prediction/
When AIDS started no one knew about it's infection rate so doctors were concerned then (as they are now are about Covid) about how widespread it would become in the early days. A Charlie Rose interview of the Surgeon General of the US (Koop) in the early days of HiV said something similar to what Y Ben- Israel says. He said it would die out somehow just like all other epidemics, and Koop also said he had no idea why this would happen. Black Death died despite no germ theory until the late 19th century which he cited. Not that any of these diseases prove Covid will die out, but I provide the article purely for those who take an interest in it, especially since Georgia is planning to end lock down this week and Sweden didn't lock down.

[Paxiled]

Black Plague still exists, actually, it just doesn't erupt as often because we changed as a people.  We cleaned up our acts.  But Plague was also spread by war.  They burned cities, the rats fled to the next city, and took the plague with it.  Germ theory, by the way, has been a big gain but before it people still knew in some places about hygiene.  The plague was worst in Europe because they didn't believe in bathing, they believed it caused illness.  Cultures that were much more advanced than Europe were also more advanced in bathing, which means they did know about disease spread.  Not as we do now but they had the same brain power as we have now.  Europeans were the world's barbarians for most of their history, and it's only very recently in human history Europeans wised up some.  Most experts believe it's coming back in the fall big time, but they really don't know.  It's based on probabilities.  And look into Koop, he as an interesting combination of complete kook and wise man.  He had a lot of medical beliefs that were more like conspiracy theories, he was a pretty weird dude.

[Paxiled]

What is interesting is that Pasteur, who is credited with coming up with the germ theory of disease, did some disavowing of his theory late in life.  As many did, he came to the conclusion that we'll never win a "war" against germs, they will always be there, so the better way to guarantee long life would be to maximize the immune system so the body wasn't vulnerable in the first place.  This would involve hygiene, eating what humans do best eating, exercising, etc.  Doesn't mean the germs aren't there, he proved they were, but that it's a losing battle trying to kill them all.  Food for thought, because our current medical system is based on killing or suppressing symptoms, and our doctors aren't even trained much in how we can stay healthy in the first place.  It's much more lucrative financially to keep people sick and constantly in need of expensive medical care than it is to keep people healthy and not needing a whole lot of medical care.  You can see that in the US, as we live long sick lives whereas many other countries live a bit longer and much less sick lives.  Again, food for thought.