Page 42 - Green Builder May-June 2020 Issue

Running on empty. Even once these empty streets are busy again, society will need to make
adjustments for the next time a pandemic hits the world. CPETTIT2007/FLICKR
Re-thinking BY ANN FORSYTH those over 70. This would spread out infec-
ORMAL LIFE AT HARVARD
tions and has been used effectively in the
has been upended by gov- past. However, using various assumptions,
ernment, university, commu-
Our Built N to COVID-19. What role do the report shows that even with a plausible
nity and business responses
mitigation approach, the U.S. will still need
eight times as many intensive care beds as
planning and design have in this kind of it currently has, with the peak occurring in
Environment pandemic? the summer of 2020.
This leaves suppression—including clos-
Recent reports from London’s Imperial
College and Harvard Global Health Insti- ing schools and universities and social dis-
tute (HGHI) lay out the broad problem. The tancing of the entire population—as our
What role do planning influential Imperial College report explains new normal, for a period of months, not
weeks. Of course, estimating the effects of
that since COVID-19 is a new disease, the
and design play in a general population does not have immu- various strategies involves many assump-
nity. Until there is a vaccine—which is
tions, but the situation is not a simple one.
expected to be 6 to 18 months away—or a This is why universities, schools, govern-
pandemic? large number of people have been infected ments and businesses are changing how
and develop immunity, infection rates will they operate. Harvard has gone to online
be high. The threat, outlined clearly by the instruction, for example. A key problem is
HGHI and illustrated by the Washington that when suppression is used as an inter-
Post, is that hospital and intensive care beds vention, people do not build up immunity,
and staff will be overwhelmed. The Impe- so suppression needs to be in place until a
rial College report estimates that with no vaccine is released and immunity built up,
action, given that COVID-19 is already in or until systems can be put in place to test,
the population, over 2 million deaths will track and trace at a massive scale. Countries
occur in the U.S. such as Singapore and South Korea are now
That leaves non-pharmaceutical interven- exemplars for managing the disease through
tions; in the Imperial College report these testing and monitoring, having experi-
are termed “mitigation” and “suppression.” enced Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome
Mitigation aims to slow the disease using (SARS) or Middle East respiratory syndrome
measures such as isolating those who are (MERS) in past decades. They were prepared
sick, quarantining household members, for COVID-19. In places without such prepa-
and implementing social distancing for ration, suppression is buying time to make

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