Abstract
As a basic countermeasure against COVID-19, what we call Plan A (taking strong infection control measures or loose measures alternately) or Plan B (continuing strong infection control measures until vaccines are developed) have been already proposed and implemented in some countries. As the third basic countermeasure, we propose Plan C based on the example of Sweden. Plan C tries to protect the elderly from the infection by keeping them as quarantined as possible, while minimizing restrictions of socioeconomic activities by non-elderly people, thus maintaining the basic function of our society. Under Plan C, there is a higher risk that the number of severely infected persons temporarily exceeds the available medical capacity during the pandemic period of COVID-19. In order to prevent this risk, we point out the importance of increasing medical capacity, behavioral changes to reduce the transmission of COVID-19, and thorough protection of facilities for the elderly. If medical demand still exceeds the supply and triage to avoid so-called medical collapse is needed, we suggest that the elderly should be treated only with palliative care without being admitted into the intensive care unit (ICU). On the other hand, we also propose to give priority to the elderly when the vaccine was developed.
