About Quarantine and Social Distancing
A lot has changed in our world over the past few weeks as we deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. If you’re looking for general information on what COVID-19 is, check out my COVID-19 Overview. However, I want to follow that up with some information on quarantine and social distancing and why we are recommending such measures. Let’s get into it.
But before we do, realize that it’s the nature of pandemics to be new and uncharted territory. Therefore recommendations from the experts (WHO, CDC, etc.) change rapidly. This post reflects my thoughts and explanations regarding the state of things at the time of publishing.
What’s the purpose of quarantine and social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic?
Many people understandably mistake the purpose of quarantine and social distancing as an attempt to stop the spread of the virus. However, this is not the case. These are meant to slow the spread, not stop it.
Imagine that 100% of people isolated themselves completely and effectively right now. Eventually those who have survived COVID-19 develop immunity (They can’t get infected again.), and the virus stops spreading because it has no one else in the area to spread to. Ideally, this would cause the virus to die out. However, this would take the entire U.S. to come to a complete screeching halt for multiple weeks. Wuhan, China did it and it seems to have worked, so far at least. But, it was an extreme enforced lockdown. This is not very realistic in the U.S. for various reasons. Therefore, it’s unlikely the virus will just die out. Although, if we social distance hard enough and long enough, that could happen!
Long story short, many believe the virus is going to inevitably continue to spread until most of the population has gotten it. The COVID-19 virus has found a sweet spot between being just deadly enough to cause problems but not deadly enough that only sick people spread it (not everyone who gets it will get sick). That makes it hard to contain. So if the spread of COVID-19 among the population is inevitable, why even bother with social distancing and quarantine?
So that the COVID-19 pandemic lasts longer.
Sounds backwards, right? First, let’s imagine this scenario. During any holiday season people buy a lot of holiday related items (e.g. decorations, candy, cards, presents, etc). In order to prepare for this, manufacturers begin to make these items many months before that specific holiday in order to build up enough stock for the store to sell. If they did not prepare early for the holiday season, all of the stores would very quickly be sold out of all holiday merchandise. So, instead of new ornaments this year, your family is decorating the Christmas tree with fishing lures, Coke cans, and shotgun shells. Congratulations on becoming a redneck! 😁
Ok, so let’s replace the merchandise with healthcare and holiday shoppers with sick people. COVID-19 is causing a lot of sick people to need healthcare; however, the healthcare system isn’t prepared for this season of pandemic. All of a sudden a lot of people need the hospital’s “product,” but the unprepared hospital is out of stock. Therefore, quarantine and social distancing work to slow the spread of COVID-19. If the virus spreads slower, fewer people need the hospital at any given time; therefore, the healthcare system can keep up with demand. Quarantine or no quarantine, the majority of the population may still get COVID-19. The hope is that not everyone gets it at the same time.
We have two options: (1) everyone gets it over a short period of time and a lot of people die because the healthcare system can’t handle that many people at once. (2) Everyone gets sick over a longer period of time and a lot fewer people die because the healthcare system is able to keep up with demand. Here’s a good graph that demonstrates this idea.
This is what people mean by “flattening the curve.” We want the flatter and longer green curve in which fewer people die, not the taller and shorter red curve with more deaths because it’s above the “healthcare capacity” line. The same amount of people get infected in both the green and red curves. The only difference is time. Fewer people die if we can make the pandemic last longer even though that sounds counterintuitive.
So will I get COVID-19 anyway?
Probably, but that does not mean you shouldn’t follow quarantine and social distancing guidelines. The hope is that when you get it, the healthcare system will have the supplies to take care of you if you need them. But that is dependent on you listening and following your local guidelines. In a very real sense, by practicing quarantine and social distancing you are directly helping the healthcare system. That may sound like a silly “participation trophy” type of thing to say, but I’m being honest when I say that the healthcare system depends on you practicing social distancing.
At the end of the day, if healthcare workers can’t stay healthy and hospitals can’t stay well-equipped, things get a lot worse. Healthcare workers are putting themselves and their families on the line right now as they are at high risk of being harmed by COVID-19. Multiple healthcare workers have been put in critical condition or have died from COVID-19 already. The least you can do is stay away from people, please.
And to those of you (I’m looking at you, Generation Z) who refuse to follow social distancing guidelines despite being asked to for the safety of others, pay attention. Firstly, low risk doesn’t mean zero risk. Although it’s not as common, there are young healthy people dying from COVID-19. Also, consider that some people may be at high risk but not know it (unknown medical issues). Secondly, if you have the coronavirus, you’re spreading it further than you think. There’s a decent chance you’re infectious but don’t have any symptoms yet. So, you’re giving it to other people who are high risk even if you don’t realize it. Stop hurting other people and think about someone other than yourself for a change. Be kind, be wise, be humble, stay at home.
I really wanted to say “Be kind, rewind” there. Anyone remember that? 🙂
When will we be out of this mess?
We don’t know. That’s not a satisfactory answer, but it’s the truth. It will be at least another month or two, and the economic impact will be much greater. There are two ways we could exit this situation, the virus is contained or herd immunity. So far, containing COVID-19 seems much easier said than done. This is due to it being spread by both sick and healthy people. Herd immunity can happen two ways, by vaccine (ideal) or natural development (last resort). I talk about what vaccines and herd immunity are in this post.
We likely won’t have a vaccine for COVID-19 for 1-2 years at best. Despite what the anti-vaccine community says, there are extremely strict guidelines, testing, and regulations that vaccines must meet prior to being approved.
Since a vaccine is a ways off, naturally acquired herd immunity may, unfortunately, be how we’re getting out of this thing. Admittedly, this isn’t the ideal or preferred “exit strategy.” Nor should this ever be our plan (source). But unless we’re able to slow the spread enough to contain it or figure out another solution, over time a certain percentage of the population is going to get COVID-19 and become immune. Then the virus will have trouble finding someone else to infect, so it begins to decrease. That exact percentage of people with immunity that’s needed for this to work is different for every virus, but regardless it’s most of the population. Here’s a good graphic that explains how that works:
Best guess currently for COVID-19 is around 70% of the population at least. (source)
As mentioned before there are two ways for us to gain natural herd immunity: fast (more deaths) and slow (much fewer deaths). We’re fighting for the slower route which unfortunately means we may be social distancing for longer.
One thing that has shown promise in other smaller countries is selective isolation/quarantine. If someone tests positive for COVID-19, every single person that person may have come in contact with over the past 1-2 weeks is contacted, isolated, and tested. This creates a pyramid of sorts of selectively quarantined individuals in an attempt to separate the virus from the general population, keeping simultaneous infection numbers down. But this requires widely available COVID-19 testing, isolation, and citizen participation (following rules, giving up privacy and personal information, etc). This is harder to do in the United States, but we may be able to work towards that which would mean some of us could hang out again sooner. Yay!
Dang, got any good news?
Absolutely. There are many things to be thankful for.
1. We have healthcare. The workers in the U.S. healthcare system are beastly. They work long and hard hours to make sure you’re as safe as possible. The system has limits, and it’s far from perfect, but it’s fighting for you.
2. The Internet exists. We’re largely stuck at our homes, but we are not isolated socially. We can not only talk to anyone in the entire world, but we can see them on video too! It wasn’t long ago that none of that existed. Get creative with it and play games together, watch tv shows together, discover new music together, etc. This obviously isn’t as good as being physically present, but it could be a lot worse.
3. If you do, be thankful that you have a home to quarantine yourself in. There’s a decent chance it has electricity, air conditioning, heat, water, plumbing, etc. Remember, many people don’t have that.
4. You’re not stuck inside. I see a lot more people going on walks in their neighborhood, sitting out on their porches, children playing in the yard, etc. I’d encourage you to try and get outside more, even go on a hike. Just keep your distance (at least a strict 6 feet) from others and don’t touch anything. 👍
5. Everyone is in this together. Many people don’t know their neighbors that well. Pull up some chairs in the yard and hang out at a distance. I’ve seen some people in neighborhoods hanging out with their chairs spaced at least 10 feet or more from each other. If you’ve got them, pull up your trucks together in a field or parking lot (at least 10ft apart), stay in your truck bed, grill out (on your own grill), and shoot the breeze at a distance.
6. Exercise. Just because you can’t go to the gym doesn’t mean you can’t get those gains! There are tons of home workout programs out there. When this is all over, show back up to work swole!
7. Gas is pretty cheap these days. Go for a drive with no destination. Find out where all those roads go, see the sights from your car, and jam to some good music along the way. (Just take appropriate precautions when using the gas pump.)
8. Music is a thing. Get lost in it. Discover some new bands. YouTube is full of free lessons on that <insert instrument here> you’ve been wanting to play.
9. For quarantined couples, well, get creative! 😉
10. Boredom. I’ve actually been thinking a bit over the past few months that we (in the U.S. at least) have lost the art of boredom. Spend some time to just sit and be bored. No TV, no phone, no music, nothing. Learn how to be bored well. I think it flexes your brain cells.
I could go on for days about things we should be thankful for, but I’ll leave you with this. We’ve gotten through worse (pandemics, wars, famines, etc). We will get through this too. It’s times like these, in the face of adversity, that we make breakthroughs, innovations, and progress. We’re in this together. The whole world is.
Know that many really smart people are working around the world right now to come up with a better solution to the COVID-19 pandemic. What they are asking of us is to be diligent in practicing social distancing, and self quarantine for those of us with symptoms. Yes, it sucks. But it’s what your community needs right now.
Finally, I’d be remiss in these difficult and serious times if I didn’t mention someone who offers hope above all hope and peace above all peace, a hope and peace that don’t rely on how great or terrible things end up going. That person is Jesus Christ. This is a medical blog, so I’m not going to preach to you, but I found the following quote particularly comforting, true, and well-fitting for such a time that we are in. It’s from C.S. Lewis, a fellow Christian, and I think it pertains to everyone, regardless of your faith.
“In one way we think a great deal too much of the atomic bomb. “How are we to live in an atomic age?” I am tempted to reply: “Why, as you would have lived in the sixteenth century when the plague visited London almost every year, or as you would have lived in a Viking age when raiders from Scandinavia might land and cut your throat any night; or indeed, as you are already living in an age of cancer, an age of syphilis, an age of paralysis, an age of air raids, an age of railway accidents, an age of motor accidents.”
In other words, do not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation. Believe me, dear sir or madam, you and all whom you love were already sentenced to death before the atomic bomb was invented: and quite a high percentage of us were going to die in unpleasant ways. We had, indeed, one very great advantage over our ancestors—anesthetics; but we have that still. It is perfectly ridiculous to go about whimpering and drawing long faces because the scientists have added one more chance of painful and premature death to a world which already bristled with such chances and in which death itself was not a chance at all, but a certainty.
This is the first point to be made: and the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds.”
— “On Living in an Atomic Age” (1948), C. S. Lewis
The remainder of this quote can be found here in illustrated form.
Keep in mind this quote doesn’t consider social distancing. So some of the examples at the end may not be great advice currently. 😊Also, I do not believe C.S. Lewis is suggesting we ignore the current problems around us but to simply remember that our life has always been and will always be fragile. Let’s fight hard against COVID-19. But don’t let the fear of it paralyze you.
Learn more, stay humble, and stay away from other people!
