Hello folks, it’s your friendly neighborhood scientist !
By this time most people have had something affected by the closures occuring due to the viral pandemic sweeping the globe. It’s happened to me too. It sucks. But here’s the thing, it’s the best choice fore everyone.
We now know a lot more about the virus than we did two months ago, and it is almost all bad news. The virus is capable of spreading rapidly through people coughing, sneezing, touching and now possibly even breathing it in from the air. This particular strain mostly affect people over the age of 50 but people of almost all ages are being admitted to the hospital due to complications from the disease. One of the few rays of hope is that children seem to have minimal symptoms, but they can still carry it and are capable of spreading the disease to a lot of people without realizing it.
This high ability to spread is why everything is shutting down. Right now we know the virus can be passed before a person ever experiences symptoms, so one person who has been infected and does not realize it yet is capable of spreading it to anyone who gets within 3 feet of them. Consider the sports game, vacation, transportation you were planning on taking. Imagine how 1 sick person could infect so many at one event and the context becomes a bit better.
The last factor involved for Americans is thay we don’t know just how many peoe are currently infected. The CDC guidance for testing is extremely limiting, and it may even be on purpose because we only have a limited number of tests. This is a problem we never should have had, but that’s a discussion for another day.
So right now, it means that the fewer people we all interact with, the safer we will all be. As someone who didn’t grow up with civics classes it’s been a little more difficult to identify this as a responsibility not just to ourselves but to our communities. This is the only way we can be safe. It means some short term pain but if it feels like an over reaction when this is over that means it worked.
I hope your jobs are accommodating the necessary arrangements to allow for extended, paid sick leave for quarantine. If not, call your government representatives and demand action.
Please put any questions you have in the comments or PM me.
Good luck out there. Stay healthy, stay safe.
PMP in the Lab 