For some reason I thought this was about corona virus.
Brooke, mind taking a look at this guys stuff and commenting?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3etuaYTDwFI&feature=em-lsp
I'm concerned about SARS-2, but I don't know if it will end up being horrific (like a million dead Americans) or more like a bad flu season.
Things that give me hope it won't be so bad (but see below):
-- Infection rates and death rates don't seem to be exponential. (If true, this is *very* good.)
-- We aren't currently hearing of 20 deaths, then 200, then 2000 in the US.
-- Hospitals aren't overwhelmed currently.
-- Infection rates in China are supposedly going down.
-- Death rate is perhaps a lot lower than 1-3% since number of people infected is probably way higher than confirmed cases.
-- Warmer weather is coming, and infection rate might go way down.
But:
-- It's still early in the process.
-- Could easily take a year for a vaccine.
-- Testing in the US is botched so badly that we don't know infection rates. (This makes me angry. The US had months of advanced notice and more money than anyone. It's so badly botched that it opens up suspicion. However, the power of ineptitude and mistakes is very large.)
-- Will our organizations tell the common man true infection rates and death rates?
-- It would take only a small increase in need for special care in hospitals to swamp them.
-- Is infection rate in China truly going down?
-- Lots of businesses (and thus related jobs) are, I suspect, going to get creamed.
In the end, our choices range from doing nothing (live as usual) to living in a sealed plastic bubble, and it depends on our specific situation.
I have two 10 year olds. One has at times needed hospitalization for breathing after getting respiratory infections. I have elderly parents. One is medically immunosuppressed for Crohn's disease. We all live in or next to Kirkland, Washington -- US ground zero. When people say, "It only seriously affects old people or people with conditions," I don't think, "Oh, that's fine then."
So, here's what I do. I would be keeping my kids out of school even if schools weren't closed (which they are) for at least a couple of weeks while I see how this is playing out. (I perhaps wouldn't do that if we weren't in ground zero, or if one of them weren't more susceptible to breathing problems.) We mostly stay home and don't go to places with lots of people (restaurants, the gym, the mall, the movie theater). I don't eat restaurant-prepared food much (as that goes through many hands). The adults are careful about putting fingers in mouths or rubbing eyes, using hand sanitizer after using an ATM, gas pump, etc. When I come home from work, I wash my hands and put on a different shirt before I hug my kids and wife. Everyone washes hands before eating. I wipe my mobile phone down with an alcohol swab before I come home for the day. I don't kiss my kids or even my wife on their faces for now. I reduce the number of days per week that I eat lunch next to co-workers.
I will do this while I see how it goes here at US ground zero.