War on Coronavirus: If You're Not Social Distancing, You're Part of the Problem
In just a matter of weeks, the spread of coronavirus has advanced to over 3,200 confirmed cases. Italy, Spain, and now France are on country-wide mandatory lockdowns. But, were the lockdowns on these European countries placed too late?
Weeks after Coronavirus cases started popping up in Italy and Spain, people around the country were made aware, but they still continued with normal daily routines. Tourism continued, restaurants continued to be filled, people continued going to work, school, events, etc. The relaxed laid back ways of the Europeans was about to pay a price. In a matter of days, cases were jumping in much greater quantities, and at much faster rates. As a result, the healthcare system in those countries is collapsing.
Because of the rapid rate that this virus is spreading in Italy and Spain, they are now faced with completely full hospitals, not enough medical equipment, nor medical staff. It has even come to doctors deciding who gets to live, and who they’ll unfortunately have to let die. Yes, it’s that bad.
In the past week, Spain and Italy natives have been releasing videos advising to United States citizens to take this virus very seriously. But, most of all, do what the failed at doing - staying home in the very early stages of this virus in America. Stay home! Don’t go out unless it’s a total emergency. You see, one of the reasons the Coronavirus spread at an alarming speed, and infected so many is because people refrained from taking the correct safety measures. No one self quarantined. Everyone remained unfazed, and carried on with normal life. We now see, that wasn’t the smart thing to do.
Therefore, now we have two coined terms that are taking over all types of media platforms - “Social Distancing”, and “Flatten The Curve”.
Social Distancing means staying home, and only leaving if you have an emergency. It means canceling all social gatherings, working from home (if you can), not going out to eat, steering completely clear of all public places. And if you do have to go out, maintain at least a distance of 6 feet between you and other people. By taking yourself out of the equation, you can reduce the rate of the spread. If we all just continued going about our daily lives, then our chances of catching the virus, and passing it off to others would drastically increase. And, then those people would unknowingly carry it, and pass it on to more people. This virus has such a long incubation period, which is also a main component in why this reached the ‘global pandemic’ level so fast. It’s a really sneaky virus to say the least.
Now, to “Flatten The Curve”. Flattening the curve is what happens IF we all stick to Social Distancing. It is essentially, squishing that fast rate of spread down gradually until we see minimal cases pop up (if that). Flattening the Curve is also crucial in order to make sure that we don’t overwork our country’s medical staff, and fill our hospitals over capacity. We do not, I repeat, DO NOT want to collapse our healthcare system. That would bring on higher coronavirus mortality rates.
Stay up to date with this live Coronavirus Live Map here.
So, to sum it up, stay home, stay home, stay home! It is our social responsibility. We don’t want to contribute to the spread of this virus, and more importantly, we don’t want to increase the risk of spread to our elders, people with pre-existing conditions, or auto immune diseases. Let’s social distance, and flatten that curve to the ground!
We, at Exhibit A wish our babes, and their families continued health. Stay well always!
cover image via The Hill