Headlines this morning carry a message from the surgeon general, “This week, it’s going to get bad.” He went on to say, “Everyone needs to act as if they have the virus right now. So, test or no test, we need you to understand you could be spreading it to someone else. Or you could be getting it from someone else. Stay at home,” (https://www.nbcnews.com/…/surgeon-general-has-coronavirus-w…)
You can look up the story on a number of sources, I’ve given the URL for one, but here’s something to drive the point home.
The graph shows cases in China and the US based on the number of days since each had 100 cases. Last night we passed China for number of cases at our stage of the outbreak. 20 days out, we have more reported cases than any other country has had. Let that sink in.
Now, note that this is a log graph, so the slope of each line represents the growth rate. By this point in their outbreak, every other country had slowed the growth rated of reported cases. We have not. Our cases are growing just as fast as they have for the last 20 days.
So, for this stage of the outbreak, we have more cases than any other country and have a faster growth rate than any other country. That’s not a good place to be.
So if you’re going out today, ask yourself: Is this trip necessary? Does it have to be done today? If your answer to both of those questions is yes, then ask yourself: What am I doing to ensure that I minimize my own exposure and so protect those I come into contact with? What am I doing to make sure I don’t expose my loved ones on my return? You should have answers to these questions.