https://leisureguy.wordpress.com/2020/03/11/take-steps-now-to-slow-spread-of-coronavirus/

Weigh in, please: When to #selfquarantine?

My mom is almost 88; I am 65, with mild COPD and hypertension. We are both “high risk,” especially her.

I have decided TODAY mostly to stay home for the foreseeable future. My mom insists I’m overly cautious. I disagree.

We live in St. Louis, Missouri (so far; limited testing, for sure), which only has a few confirmed #coronavirus cases, but we live and operate in the exact region of St. Louis County in which many schools, large businesses and large gatherings have already closed/been canceled due to these known cases of local people who went out in public, even knowing they had been infected or had been exposed to #COVID19. Those are just the ones we know about…

I have now (3/11/20) reluctantly and sadly stopped going to the gym/swimming pool.
I already made sure we have enough food for many weeks, so I can avoid grocery stores.
I will forego libraries.

I will very much limit my trips “out” to essential medical appointments for her or me, until we know more about local infection rates and trajectories of infection/spread.

The USA is currently run by a malevolent madman and his idiot cronies who have lied, ignored, and misled us continually about this pandemic. We have to take prevention and protection into our own hands so that so many will not get sick and fewer will die.

“The Atlantic Monthly” published an article this week entitled “Cancel Everything.” Italy is closed The entire country. They are a bit late, but taking this very seriously.

From what else I’ve read and seen, so far, self-quarantine is the only sensible response for EVERYONE to make (if it hasn’t already been made for you), all over the USA and many parts of the world.
Telecommute.
Limit “outs.”

If you have to go out,
—wash your hands a lot while out
—as soon as you get home, wash your hands, again
—bring alcohol wipes to clean your steering wheel, subway.bus/train poles and straps, door handles, key fobs, purse/backpack straps, elevator and coat buttons/zipper tabs that you touch while out before bringing anything back into your dwelling.

If I had travel plans, I’d postpone or cancel them.

If I had gatherings planned, I’d postpone or cancel them.

I predict …
—more USA-based airlines will cancel flights and airports will begin to close.
—that even more USA and Canadian school districts and colleges will decide on closing for the rest of this semester, not just a few weeks (there are already over 100 who have so decided).
—ALL gatherings to be banned/canceled/postponed over the next several weeks, through the end of April or longer.

The info I see asks people who “feel sick” to stay home, BUT people who DO NOT FEEL SICK can be infected and spread ANY virus for one to 3 days BEFORE symptoms appear, if they appear at all.

Campuses are closing to protect the adult FACULTY and staff as well as the parents/grandparents of students, all of whom are more vulnerable than the college-aged students. So are businesses and companies by asking their staff to stop traveling or closing down all together for a while.

We have to be more proactive, not reactive, or more are doomed. We can’t wait for test results (not coming any time soon with total numbers that are accurate) or wait to “feel sick” to take precautions and self-quarantine.

How irresponsible would I be to keep going out in public, as if everything were fine, just so I can enjoy a swim or get some more library books?

THISISNOTNORMAL and we should not behave as if it is.

Your thoughts?

And, this: “Washington State is the US’s Wuhan.The number of cases there is growing exponentially. It’s currently at 140.
“But something interesting happened early on. The death rate was through the roof. At some point, the state had 3 cases and one death.
We know from other places that the death rate of the coronavirus is anything between 0.5% and 5% (more on that later). How could the death rate be 33%?
“It turned out that the virus had been spreading undetected for weeks. It’s not like there were only 3 cases. It’s that authorities only knew about 3, and one of them was dead because the more serious the condition, the more likely somebody is to be tested.
“This is a bit like the orange and grey histograms in China: Here they only knew about the orange histograms (official cases) and they looked good: just 3. But in reality, there were hundreds, maybe thousands of true cases.
“This is an issue: You only know the official cases, not the true ones. But you need to know the true ones. How can you estimate the true ones? It turns out, there’s a couple of ways. And I have a model for both, so you can play with the numbers too.” from https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca

And, “…waiting one more day creates 40% more cases! So, maybe, if the Hubei authorities had declared the lockdown on 1/22 instead of 1/23, they might have reduced the number of cases by a staggering 20k.
“And remember, these are just cases. Mortality would be much higher, because not only would there be directly 40% more deaths. There would also be a much higher collapse of the healthcare system, leading to a mortality rate up to 10x higher as we saw before. So a one-day difference in social distancing measures can end exploding the number of deaths in your community by multiplying more cases and higher fatality rate.

“This is an exponential threat. Every day counts. When you’re delaying by a single day a decision, you’re not contributing to a few cases maybe. “There are probably hundreds or thousands of cases in your community already. Every day that there isn’t social distancing, these cases grow exponentially.”

This is also from above article, which is lengthy, has great graphs/graphics, explanations, and stats. Worth sharing, reading, USING, especially if you are in any position to make major decisions for any company or region.