Preparing For A New Future

Here's my take on the Covid-19 outbreak – on how it affects us today, and how it will affect us tomorrow – and every day after that. Maybe I'm missing something, maybe I'm just too much of a realist – let me know what you think.

So – right now, April 9, 2020. some of us are self-quarantined. Depending on where you live, you may be too. And that's the first problem – IT ALL DEPENDS ON WHERE YOU LIVE AND WHO YOUR LEADERS ARE. Some cities/states/countries are merely giving 'suggestions', while others have much stricter guidelines about who can go where. And this is the first problem. The surest, quickest way to end this pandemic is for EVERYONE, EVERYWHERE to isolate at home. But of course that's almost impossible. We still want to be able to buy groceries. We still need (now more than ever!) medical professionals. We still need police, and someone to fix the toilet if it stops up, and someone to keep the electricity flowing and the internet up. God forbid we lose the internet! So – what do we do?

For now, STAY HOME! Yes, I'm going to keep typing that over and over. STAY HOME. And the reason I think that's so important is that the more people who stay home, the more people will avoid infection. Gosh – that sounds pretty simple, right?

The problem is that we humans are social beings. Eventually 99% of us will just get bored enough, or lazy enough, or desperate enough, and we'll start returning to our old habits. But before that even happens, some public official is going to have to make a decision on when to end the quarantine. Someone is going to have to pick a date and say that THIS date is when we go back to work, THIS date is when the kids go back to school. But the pandemic won't be over just because someone sets a date.

In addition to being social beings, most people need to go to work. They need that paycheck. They have a mortgage or rent. The kids need new shoes. The car needs a tune-up. Almost as important as our need to be social is the need to restart the economy. When people work they pay taxes. Those taxes pay for roads and sewers and countless other services most of us never think about. Those taxes fund schools and help the needy. We need for people to have money to spend and we need places for them to spend it.

And it's not just about our city/state/country- the economy is a global concern for all of us. Once businesses and factories reopen, how many small mom and pop businesses will stayed closed? How many jobs will be lost? Where will those people who used to work at the small gift shop or the local diner get a job? How will they pay their bills? Reopening businesses won't solve everything, but we have to start somewhere.we also have to have a plan for how to help those who find themselves without a job, perhaps for the first time in their lives. Through no fault of their own.

So, for very practical reasons, at some point someone is going to have to make the call to reopen the world. I'm sure there are graphs and charts and spreadsheets already being formulated to decide exactly when this will happen. Not for when it will be SAFE, but when it will be minimally harmful. Because the virus isn't going to stop. This is just the first wave. Like every tsunami, there will continue to be waves for some time to come. The virus will continue to spread and hotspots will continue to pop up for quite some time. In order to keep the economy from collapsing, someone is going to have to decide what number of deaths is acceptable. Someone is going to have to make that decision because the more we mingle the more people will die. Reopening the country, sending people back to work and kids back to school will come at a cost. The cost is in human lives.

For now, STAY HOME! In my opinion, we need for three things to happen before we can even think about returning to a 'normal' life. Those three things are:

1. Early detection
2. Prompt and effective treatment
3. An effective vaccine – given to a large enough percentage of the worldwide population to be effective

All of these things will take time. There will be lots of trials and lots of errors, Drugs that we hoped would work, drugs that might work on a small group will probably be found to be less effective than originally hoped. Although I'm a big believer in vaccines in general, I probably won't be lining up for the first COVID-19 vaccine, knowing that it'll probably still be a work in progress.

Regarding early detection, today's Washington Post interviewed Washington state governor Jay Inslee, who's state is among the hardest hit. In the article Inslee stressed that MORE tests will be needed in the future. He stressed that 'As corona virus cases recede in the coming months, if anything, more testing will be required. That’s because when people reassemble, it will be urgent to jump on cases in which people again show symptoms, and test them, to avoid a second wave.'

And, much like the vaccines we already have – those for measles and mumps, polio and the flu, we'll never achieve a 100% immunization rate. Some are unable to take a vaccine, and some are unwilling. The thing is, if enough of us take any given vaccine, the majority help to protect the minority. As long as enough of us are vaccinated. We've seen in recent years how much real damage can be done when anti-vaxxers become a larger and larger percentage – diseases reappear. Right now we don't have a vaccine for COVID-19, so our best bet is to STAY HOME. To avoid contact with anyone and everyone. Seriously. And yes, that means you, even if you don't feel sick. Even if you haven't been exposed (as far as you know). And even when things start to go back to 'normal'.

I think this will be a very long, slow, painful process. I don't expect an effective vaccine for at least a year. And understand that it's not just the creation of an effective vaccine, but the actual vaccination of enough people to make it work!

For now STAY HOME for the foreseeable future, and, if you can, even after businesses and schools reopen. Getting lazy, or bored - or just falling back into old habits - and easing up on our current restrictions will only cause us to backslide. Oh, and wash your hands!