‘Social distancing’ ….Corona virus part 8

It’s an awkward term but it covers the basics. Stay away from others — literally.

Forget hugs and handshakes. Use foot taps or jazz hands or place your hand over your heart to greet friends and colleagues. Work at home, if you can. Wear gloves when out and yes, wash your hands meaningfully (at least 20 seconds; song optional) and often. Travel with hand sanitizer and use it. Skip concerts, conferences and the cricket game.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advises those in communities where COVID -19 is spreading to take extra measures to put distance between yourself and other people to further reduce your risk of being exposed to this new virus

Stay home as much as possible, they recommend. Consider ways of getting food brought to your house through family, social or commercial networks.

I do this every year with respiratory virus season. But this year, with the social distancing, it’s just more extreme because COVID19 is much more extreme.

What people should think about now is how they can avoid being in a public group. That means staying home for movies and meals instead of going out. And having your pharmacy deliver your medications to your home.”

Social distancing is going to exist until the likelihood of picking up and passing on coronavirus dramatically diminishes. The exact amount of time that is going to be is anyone's guess at this point.

I will offer an educated guess that it iwill not end any time soon. By that, I mean it will be a matter of months until it is safe to have public gatherings again. Even at that time, people will be advised to distance themselves from others if they have flu-like symptoms.

Why do I have to avoid people?

Social distancing is not about you, individually. It’s about the collective “you” — society. It’s about cutting the chain of transmission.

Not getting infected yourself and not infecting others. Or as one scientist currently working at home put it, “Why be a vector?”

Let’s say the virus infects you, but you don’t feel all that sick. So you go off to work or a movie or a party at a friend’s house where you hug a few folks and inadvertently infect two other people who go on to infect a few more, some of them grandparents, one with lung disease. It’s a potentially devastating outcome.

And it already happens all the time with the regular old flu.

Unfortunately, it’s happening much faster — and much more ruthlessly —

with COVID-19, which can spread even when people are asymptomatic.

Bedford, the computational biologist who’s been following the outbreak for months and was the first to genetically connect Washington’s community spread to China, refers to this type of spread as undetected

All the more reason to stay home: You can actually save lives by sitting on your couch.

Disclaimer: The information on this POST is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional advice. The opinions expressed within this article are the personal opinions of the author. All content, including text, graphics, images and information, contained on or available through this article is for general information purposes / educational purposes only, and to ensure discussion or debate. 

Thank you …..So, what do we do?

We break the chain of infection. We all do our part and avoid big groups, and as much as we can, each other.

We ask people who are sick — not the worried well — to wear masks if they have to go out in public. We remind people with runny noses that they’re probably suffering from spring allergies but just to be safe, tell them to stay home and not clog the health care systems.

We wash our hands, again and again. Soap and water (and moisturizer) truly are our friends.

And when the infection starts to spread more rapidly, we self-isolate even more than we normally do.

We put a hold on large gatherings.,

We look out for the vulnerable and make sure our elderly and immunocompromised friends and family have everything they need. We don’t hoard or treat people with cold or flu symptoms

We keep in mind that every time we hang out together or go to public places, we put ourselves and those who are susceptible to coronavirus complications at risk. We try to connect with our best selves. We hold virtual happy hours, complete with "quarantines

Want to add word or two?

We make a huge but necessary change to our way of life, although to be honest, some people in this tech –saturated ,famously reserved country may not even notice.   

These measures won’t entirely control for contact transmission associated with contaminated surfaces. But they can reduce the potential for accidental airborne transmission of the virus from a cough or sneeze or normal social interaction.

Every effort makes a difference, but the more you do the better.”

These kinds of actions are as low-tech as you can get, but they work and work immediately. And it's what we have to do, Lyman said.

Your comment ….? 

Social distancing is one of the truly effective and cost-effective measures we can all commit to and ask others to do, as well. We truly must act now.

Those who fail to observe social distancing rules now face arrest, the government has said.

People have been ordered to stay in their homes except for essential work, caring or food shopping, or one period of daily exercise, in a bid to slow the spread of Covid-19.

But over recent days officials have reported many examples of people seemingly ignoring the new rules, leading to crowds in some areas and a failure to observe the recommended 2m distance from other people.

The crucial word, I believe, is “social.” In its everyday usage, it is equated with face-to-face interaction. Thus, to “socialize” is to mix around or circulate. Epidemiologists and public health specialists may have taken off from this usage to arrive at the term “social distancing” to indicate the need to avoid physical closeness and social gatherings during an infectious disease outbreak.

While the user flow of dating is typically targeted to culminate in a real-world interaction, the CDC’s guidelines requesting people in many areas to quarantine in place and remain six feet apart while in public put the kibosh on that. Kissing is generally considered by the World Health Organization as the most efficient way to spread the disease, so that’s right out.

For weeks, if not months, singles simply aren’t going to be able to seal the deal with a real-life meeting. So how do dating apps survive in an age of social distancing?

In the globalized society we live in, trust is not only earned; it is, more importantly, also functionally differentiated. Governments may tell us the right way to respond to a public health crisis. But they cannot tell us what a coronavirus is, how it is transmitted, and how it kills people. That kind of information is more credible when it is communicated by the science system itself.