Quarantining: Why are we doing this?
Lisa writes: Last December or January, a new virus surfaced in Wuhan, China. It's a type of corona virus dubbed COVID-19. On March 12, twelve days ago, Virginia schools closed for the rest of the year. The idea is that by social isolating ourselves from one another, we can slow the spread of this respiratory virus that has a 1% to 3% mortality rate.
Here's the chart that we've all been shown many times now. That dotted line is the approximately 1 million beds in the entire U.S. healthcare system. The idea behind social isolation is simply to not let more than 1 million people get sick all at once.
The good news is, it doesn't seem to affect small children as severely as older people. The bad news is that it's about twice as contagious as the regular flu and socially isolating ourselves won't stop it, only slow it. One estimate I read was that about 80% of Americans will eventually contract the virus. It will be a year to 18 months until a vaccine may be available.
So that's what we know right now and that's what we're doing. We've limited our social circle to Miss Sandy's house, the Bruss family who also send their two little girls to Miss Sandy's, and William Gall next door. (James and Williams sort of made that decision independent of the adults in the situation.) Tom and I are working from home full-time, so there's no reduction in income for us.
Most thing are closed, by state law. The only things open are grocery stores, gas stations, medical facilities, sanitation and water and power facilities. Many stores and restaurants are open on a take-out or curb-delivery basis. For example, we need to go get a curb pickup of crickets for our pet gecko from PetSmart. This will be, possibly, the most ridiculous transaction of my adult life -- I call the store, tell them I need 20 large crickets, they bag them up, tell me the price, bring them out to my car, and I give them $2.13 cents. ("Our grandparents fought Hitler; we order curbside cricket pickup," says my brain.)
The neighborhood mom's group on Facebook is doing cute things. Today they organized a "bear hunt." People put teddy bears in their windows or on their porches and as the kids took walks -- not touching anything, not playing with each other, the playgrounds are closed -- they counted how many bears they saw. James reported a dozen.
I have three pages of activity ideas. The boys only want to watch Netflix on my phone.
Here's the chart that we've all been shown many times now. That dotted line is the approximately 1 million beds in the entire U.S. healthcare system. The idea behind social isolation is simply to not let more than 1 million people get sick all at once.
The good news is, it doesn't seem to affect small children as severely as older people. The bad news is that it's about twice as contagious as the regular flu and socially isolating ourselves won't stop it, only slow it. One estimate I read was that about 80% of Americans will eventually contract the virus. It will be a year to 18 months until a vaccine may be available.
So that's what we know right now and that's what we're doing. We've limited our social circle to Miss Sandy's house, the Bruss family who also send their two little girls to Miss Sandy's, and William Gall next door. (James and Williams sort of made that decision independent of the adults in the situation.) Tom and I are working from home full-time, so there's no reduction in income for us.
Most thing are closed, by state law. The only things open are grocery stores, gas stations, medical facilities, sanitation and water and power facilities. Many stores and restaurants are open on a take-out or curb-delivery basis. For example, we need to go get a curb pickup of crickets for our pet gecko from PetSmart. This will be, possibly, the most ridiculous transaction of my adult life -- I call the store, tell them I need 20 large crickets, they bag them up, tell me the price, bring them out to my car, and I give them $2.13 cents. ("Our grandparents fought Hitler; we order curbside cricket pickup," says my brain.)
The neighborhood mom's group on Facebook is doing cute things. Today they organized a "bear hunt." People put teddy bears in their windows or on their porches and as the kids took walks -- not touching anything, not playing with each other, the playgrounds are closed -- they counted how many bears they saw. James reported a dozen.
I have three pages of activity ideas. The boys only want to watch Netflix on my phone.
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