Now is the time to implement your family plans.
Italy has now taught us that not delaying the peak is a total disaster. They had 3000 ventilators in the whole country. Actually that as a reasonable quantity given their population. They are all in use. They are looking for 10,000 more immediately. That is a forlorn hope. As I pointed out, if a country reaches that point the mortality will rise steeply and in Italy it unfortunately is.
Now the whole population need to understand now that severe restrictions are not optional and not a la carte. All must be implemented at once and simultaneously.
So that means separating individuals.
That means universities need to close. The University of Minnesota has closed all campuses, on the advice of Dr Mike Osterholm.
Schools need to close. If your schools do not close, do not send you children to school or nursery school. Do not get on a bus train, or plane and definitely not a cruise ship.
Do not join any congregations of people. That means no church, no communion. No church attendance period.
No political rallies. No protest marches.
Do not go to restaurants.
Shop now for what you need in the coming days. Do not make long car trips, or journeys.
If you have to go out for food, or essential supplies then do it at low volume times try and avoid it if possible.
Work from home, only essential personnel, should be working out of the home now. Most people fortunately these days can work from the Internet.
If we don't do this as a society we will have millions of unnecessary deaths.
The good news is that we KNOW these methods work.
The Chinese, South Koreans, Taiwan and Singapore have clear evidence that these measures work. They must not be delayed. The head of the WHO is appalled by the lack of action in the Western World. He is right to be appalled.
Now hand washing, hand disinfectants help but are a minor part of the battle. We now know from China that this virus can remain in the air for a long time and will infect people at far greater distances than six feet. It also seems to stay airborne for a long time. Airborne transmission is the major route of spread. Masks are ineffective because as I pointed out previously viruses are not filterable. So it takes pressurized filters of the Hepa variety to stop transmission. Hence the "Zoot Suits."
This virus is also present in large quantities in the stool of affected patients and persists for a considerable period after recovery. This is a very difficult issue.
Now I commend these videos done by a senior nursing instructor and well published author. It will take you some time to watch it all. They contain very useful information that is worthy of the attention of all of you. I suggest you subscribe to his channel.
Yesterday.
Today
Changing gears a little. As I told you yesterday we did a fairly large shop for food yesterday. People's carts were fairly full in the main. Stocks were not plentiful especially some shelves.
Today we did another shop for other essential supplies. Almost all carts were piled high. I would describe the manner of the shoppers as earnest. I did engage some out of curiosity. They did seem to understand that the situation was very serious. I think the closing of the University and Dr Osterholm's remarks really was getting people focused, and that it was important to plan for extended period of disruption. The was no impatience or any inappropriate behavior that I observed yesterday, or today, contrary to what SWERD observed.
In summary now is the time to quickly prepare. These measures we know are the only way to affect the trajectory of this disaster in a favorable way, and it will, if we have everyone's cooperation. This is a community challenge, you need to do this for yourselves, family, friends and neighbors.
