(Newswire.net— May 13, 2020) — Experts from Israel have proposed a new way to exploit one weakness of the coronavirus in order to start economic and other activities, without an increase of the number of people infected with the virus.
That weakness of the coronavirus is its “latency period” – the time that starts three days from the moment when someone becomes infected with it and lasts until the moment when the virus starts transmitting to others.
That period is the “Achilles’ heel” of the virus, scientists say, which “should be used in order to revive the economy while preserving the safety of employees” as well as other activities.
The authors of this proposal are Eran Yashiv, professor of economics at Tel Aviv University and the London School of Economics, and Uri Alon and Ron Milo, from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, professors of the world’s new multidisciplinary university subject Computational and Systems Biology (CaSB). The discipline uses algorithms that rely on natural sciences, mathematics, and computer science, to solve problems of biology and nature – Virusology in this case.
Due to the perceived weakness of the virus during the transmission, they believe that the work days should be organized in two-week cycles, which they called “System 10-4”, about which they published an article in the “New York Times.”
The professors suggest that “for four days, employees – of course with protective masks and at a safe distance from each other, work as usual, and for the next ten days, during the time when it is possible to transmit the virus if infected, be quarantined at home.”
The first concrete reactions come from the European Union as according to the article, Austrian education authorities have decided to apply this system as of Monday, May 18.
An analysis of the Weizmann Institute’s model, the professors write, indicates that this solution can reduce the “reproductive number” of the virus to less than one in the case of coronavirus – meaning how many people are infected on average by a person who carries the virus.
Thus, “System 10-4” can suppress the epidemic, and enable sustainable economic activity, the Israeli professors believe.
This system enables someone, even if he is infected and has no symptoms, to be in contact with people at work and with others outside his household for only four days, and for the next ten days they are preventively in self-isolation.
This reduces the density of people at work and at school, which limits the possibilities for transmitting the virus.
Students could thus attend classes in schools for four consecutive days every two weeks, in two groups that would take turns, and on other days they would follow classes at a distance, safely isolated in their homes.
Children would go to school on the same days as their parents to work, and then they would spend ten days together at home.
Two groups of workers would also work alternately in companies, production would be regular and predictable, which would increase consumer confidence and increase both supply and demand.
The implementation of the “System 10-4,” write Israeli professors, warns of economic and psychological consequences that would occur if the economy suddenly started working, and the number of infected people would inevitably increase, which would necessitate the reintroduction of general movement bans, back to what they were at the beginning of the pandemic.
“System 10-4”, according to the authors, enables at least part-time work for millions of people, which would help them, and there would be less need to give them systemic financial assistance, and the number of businesses going bankrupt would be reduced, which would accelerate economic recovery.