As you have likely heard, the Coronavirus (a.k.a. COVID-19) has continued to spread throughout the world. As of March 4, 2020, cases of the virus have been confirmed in 73 countries, including 16 U.S. states. China had a massive outbreak, which mostly seems to be under control, but the virus is spreading exponentially in many other countries. Nobody knows what is going to happen at this point, but it makes sense to be prepared in case things get bad.
Here are a few important things to keep in mind:
- The most common symptoms of COVID-19 seem to be fever, dry cough, fatigue, sputum production, shortness of breath, and sore throat. Not everyone who contracts the illness experiences all of these symptoms.
- Unfortunately, even when the virus is not fatal, it can make you sick for an extended period of time. While most who contract the illness experience mild symptoms, the more severe symptoms can be much worse than the flu.
- The fatality rate from the virus appears to be low for people under age 40 who are in good health. The risk grows substantially for older people and people with severe pre-existing medical conditions. Even if you aren’t too worried about getting it yourself, it’s important to avoid spreading the virus to elderly people or people with severe pre-existing medical conditions.
Some common sense precautions you can take now:
- Practice avoiding touching your eyes/nose/mouth when you’re out of the home (this is difficult, but you can get better over time).
- Stock up on at least two weeks of extra (non-perishable) food. If things get bad in your area, this will enable you to stay home if necessary. Keep in mind that the worst time to get infected is when there are too many cases for the hospital system in your area to handle. So if that occurs, and you have the ability, you may want to stay home for a while to ride it out. In the event that you get sick, it’s also really nice to already have food at home, as you may not feel well enough to go out, and you won’t want to expose others to the virus. Of course, if you remain unaffected, you can just eat the extra food over time.
- Wash your hands more thoroughly and more often than normal. Especially be conscientious about washing them after coming into contact with people, and immediately after returning to your home. Bring hand sanitizer (that is at least 60% alcohol) with you when you’re out of the house for an extended period, and use it after riding public transportation. Note though that the combination of soap and water is seemingly even more effective than hand sanitizer, but hand sanitizer is convenient when on the go.
- Stock up on any needed medications, so that you won’t run out.
- Call anyone you know may struggle to care for themselves in the event that the virus gets bad. Make sure they have what they need (e.g., that they have stocked up on their medications and that they have plenty of food at home).
To be prepared, just in case things get bad in your area, I recommend reading the CDCs information site about how to prepare for a potential pandemic:
https://www.ready.gov/pandemic
And here is a post I wrote, that has a lot of more detailed information about the virus:
https://www.clearerthinking.org/single-post/2020/02/26/Coronavirus-what-you-need-to-know
Additionally, here is a Wiki I started to put together that tries to address some important questions about the virus. If you have additional useful information, please add it (the Wiki is freely editable):
https://cov19.spencergreenberg.com/
This more recent post by a doctor also contains a lot of very useful information:
https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/03/02/coronavirus-links-speculation-open-thread/
This website can help you stay up to date on where cases are happening (just check to make sure the last time it’s been updated, which is shown in the bottom left hand corner):
https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6
And here is a forecasting website where the wisdom of the crowds is used to make predictions about how likely the virus is to get to different levels (which is constantly updated with new, aggregated forecasts every day – the numbers can shift a lot):
Predicted cases in the U.S. by April 27th
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