The world is currently on pause right now because of the novel Coronavirus- Covid 19. As much as possible, we are advised to practice safety measures to stop the spread of the virus. Measures like sanitizing, hand washing, staying 6 feet away from the next person to avoid transmission of droplets, and my personal favourite, staying the heck at home.
I’m an introvert so social distancing sounds like Christmas to me, lol. It’s like I have been practising for this my entire life. But what are the reasons for social distancing though? And why is it so important?
To flatten The Curve
Social distancing is currently the only way to slow down the spread of this virus and flatten the curve. It’s the way to reduce the number of cases being reported daily so as to reduce the strain on our health care system and our health workers who are constantly on the frontlines trying to battle this.
Let us take a scenario: John has the virus and is asymptomatic. He thinks he is healthy so he does not practice social distancing as advised by his government to reduce the spread. Instead, he goes out to restaurants, bars, the office for 10 days and infects 10 people each day. That is 100 people that have the potential to infect 10 more people each. Do you see a pattern?
Now if John goes out just 2 out of 10 days and maybe infects 10 people each day, that’s just 20 people. And if 15 out of those 20 also decide to stay home, that’s just 5 people left. If John does not go out for 10 days and he does not infect anyone till he starts to see symptoms, he may have saved as many as 1000 lives.
Do you get the point?
To Save Immune-compromised People
I know you have been on twitter and heard that for young, healthy people, the virus only causes mild flu. While that is grossly untrue, it is true that certain people have a higher chance of fighting the virus than others. But then, there are older people everywhere that you could possibly infect if you don’t stay home and practice social distancing. Think of your parents or your friend’s parent that are older.
Think of people with underlying medical conditions ranging anything from diabetics to asthma.
Even young people could have those diseases and end up having a hard time getting through the virus and recovering from it.
Basically, you could be an incubator for a virus that could kill hundreds if you do not practice social distancing.
To Prevent Reinfection
Yes, you heard me. Although medical experts are still investigating a few cases of re-infection, the findings suggest that Coronavirus, unlike some other viruses, does not produce a strong enough antibody that makes you immune to it after infection.
So if a person is social distancing, as I explained earlier, they are reducing the number of people being exposed to the virus. And so when they recover, they are less likely to get reinfected because there are fewer people in the world with the virus.
Remember, once exposed, the immune system is compromised and reinfection can just lead to an exacerbation. AKA, it could be a lot worse.
The moral of my story is that not practising social distancing can come back to bite you in the butt. BAD.
So, let’s #StayHomeTogether to prevent this from being the Bubonic plague (but with WiFi). Just stay the heck at home. Pretty Please.