About Social Distancing and the Coronavirus

As businesses, schools, churches, libraries, sporting and entertainment events, theme parks and other public places marked by gatherings of people shut down for the remainder of March...and possibly beyond...I am taking my own steps to flatten the exponential curve of coronavirus (specifically COVID-19) transmission in this country, staying at home when it isn't necessary to go out and avoiding my usual haunts at Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts.  We've been shopping for reserve items that could help tide us over for a few days should we find ourselves quarantined or the stores themselves completely close their doors...either a distinct possibility.  The irony of this is that yesterday at Publix there were so many people packed into that small space that the shopping carts were nearly depleted and they had run out of the sanitizer wipes they provided at the entrance.  Well, I'm done with all that and, as far as being with other people for the next few days is concerned, other than voting this Tuesday I am quite content with either staying at home with my family or going back and forth to work.  Speaking of work, Friday they gathered us all together in a little room to watch our Postmaster General advise us on TV to avoid large gatherings...this social distancing concept is very counterintuitive to many of us who have come to believe that bringing people together in community is a crucial step for making the world a better place.  The epidemiologists, however, are more concerned about the growth rate of the disease among the general population and our nation's capacity to care for those many cases that will require hospitalization should that exponential curve continue, especially those more severely affected who will need ventilators to breathe.  Italy, just a few days ahead of us, is already deciding which patients are beyond saving.  And Spain and France have completely locked themselves down as well...

I'm not sure about the Florida Primary on this coming Tuesday.  They had early voting all last week at my nearby Millhopper Library, and that is a place where people get in close proximity to one another.  Voting is the one brief outing I intend to do...my polling place is the Senior Recreation Center just down the road in northern Gainesville: if they keep it there for Tuesday's voting I hope they're wise enough to have the Center closed for seniors normally using the facility and who would be hardest hit from infection as the general public traipses on through its doors to cast their ballots.  Yes, the measures taken to create social distancing and reduce the coronavirus infection rate to a more manageable level are draconian, as I mentioned in Friday's article here.  But so far we have not seen the heavy hand of governmental decrees...as has been the case in other countries earlier affected...to force the general population into complying with what they deem necessary to limit the disease's spread: this might be on the way as well.  I'm wondering what the criteria for social distancing will be in a few weeks...the numbers of those afflicted and deaths are certain to continue rising even if this season of shutdown "flattens the curve"...sooner or later places will begin to open again while the virus is still an active presence: what then?  I also mentioned before that I felt that the coronavirus is already freely circulating among us...we're going to encounter it on a mass scale eventually, let's not let the current social distancing delude us about that...