3/12 Covid-19 Update: A deadly disease without a known treatment/why you must act now
If you read one thing: The coronavirus is coming to you.
It’s coming at an exponential speed: gradually, and then suddenly.
It’s a matter of days. Maybe a week or two.
When it does, your healthcare system will be overwhelmed.
Your fellow citizens will be treated in the hallways.
Exhausted healthcare workers will break down. Some will die.
They will have to decide which patient gets the oxygen and which one dies.
The only way to prevent this is social distancing today. Not tomorrow. Today.
That means keeping as many people home as possible, starting now.
You might have fears today: What if I overreact? Will people laugh at me? Will they be angry at me? Will I look stupid? Won’t it be better to wait for others to take steps first? Will I hurt the economy too much?
But in 2–4 weeks, when the entire world is in lockdown, when the few precious days of social distancing you will have enabled will have saved lives, people won’t criticize you anymore: They will thank you for making the right decision. - Tomas Pueyo
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Hi all,
It seems like something shifted in the last 24 hours (at least in Seattle) and that people are starting to come around to the magnitude of what's happening (and what's been happening for quite some time under the radar). I think the combination of March Madness getting cancelled, schools closing indefinitely, Tom Hanks being infected, and Trump finally admitting that this thing is real, and that it's coming for us, maybe (FINALLY) tipped the scales. I asked someone at work this week why it's taken so long for the seriousness of this to sink in, and he said it's because no one born in the last 102 years (since the 1918 flu pandemic) has ever seen anything like this - and it's hard to imagine and prepare for something that we have no frame of reference for. No one could have imagined the twin towers falling until they did. I think another thing that's made this hard is that people want to know what's coming, but what we do now will determine what's coming. The number of people who die from this is dependent on the choices we all make today.
Bill Gates said on Feb 28 that this could be the once-in-a century pandemic everyone was afraid of, and that we should all assume it will be until we know otherwise.
Here are five ways I think we can take that advice to heart:
Take this seriously: Follow the advice in the article above. Start social distancing now. Start thinking through worst case scenarios. Are you prepared to not leave your house for a few weeks?
Help people who know you are susceptible to this make good decisions: I've had my mom and grandma quarantined for the last two weeks. Trust me - it's not easy keeping my mom away from her grandkids (hi mom, sorry you've been stuck inside!), but the way someone put it to me was: Would she rather not see them for a month, or never again? And when it's put like that, it doesn't seem like a difficult choice. We all should be careful right now, but especially people who are in a risk category (60+, underlying health condition). How can we be helpful?
Think of people who know you might be scared right now, and reach out: Being young/healthy right now is a privilege, and one that I think we need to take advantage of. The building I live in has several elderly people in it, one of whom told me she's scared to go the grocery store, but doesn't know how to use delivery apps and is worried she's going to run out of supplies. So I wrote my name/number on a note card and slipped it under the doors of the old people in my building and just said to call me if they needed supplies or were starting to feel sick. People who live in cities can feel especially isolated- a lot of people don't know their neighbors. But even if it feels weird to offer help to someone you don't know - do it anyway.
Stay informed: It seems like the US is unfortunately currently headed down the same path as China and Italy. If you want to know what precautions/impacts here might look like - keep track of what's been going on there (thanks Anil!)
Check on your friends: I'm not sure what it feels like being outside Seattle right now - but living here feels surreal. I don't know the next time I'm going to see my parents or grandma. I don't really know how to try to keep some sense of normalcy to my life when nothing feels normal. I'm not really sure how to live when it feels like almost every choice I make could have life/death consequences for someone else. It's helpful to talk through that with people. Text your friends. Call your friends. Better yet, set up video chats so people can see friendly faces. It really does help!
Things to Read:
Highly, highly recommend this twitter thread from Jeremy Konynydk ,who helped lead the Ebola outbreak response. It's what he thinks Trump should have said last night: "My fellow Americans, the next few months are going to be hard. For many of us, harder than anything we've faced in our lifetimes. Life in our country is about to change. We must unify against this threat like we unified after 9/11. And indeed, this virus threatens to kill more Americans than terrorism ever has. But we can defeat it, and we will defeat it.For now, medicine cannot defeat this disease. But *people* can. We have no vaccine, we have no treatment, although we are working furiously to develop both. Until then, what we have is us. Our choices, our decisions, our behavior - that is how we will do this"
Coronavirus: Why you must act now:Using data/models to answer the questions: How many cases of coronavirus will there be in your area? What will happen when these cases materialize? What should you do? When?
Ways To Help:
Donate blood! (Thanks Tyler!): "The Pacific Northwest’s blood supply is at risk of collapse in coming days"
Follow On Twitter:
Good News Story: My cousin Kristie had her middle schoolers make cards for people in local nursing homes and shelters.
Some of you asked about forwarding these emails - please feel free to forward, or send me email addresses and I can add folks to the distribution list. Just please don't reply all - send directly to me. Also thanks to those sending resources to include! Keep them coming!