Winter is coming- what social distancing should look like.
Looking at what is happening around the country and even here in the Bay Area it is clear that the winter surge of coronavirus cases predicted months ago is happening now. This post is a quick overview of where we are and what needs to happen on a personal level. I will have another post with a more detailed dive into specifics and what needs to happen on a governmental level. I’ll edit this post to link to that one once I’ve written it and I’ll email it out too. While all of my posts make use of Bay Area data I try to keep them general enough that they can be used by anyone.
Spoiler alert- I think that now would be an excellent time to revisit all your social interactions and find ways of making them less risky. You have lots of flexibility in how you achieve that goal, but I suggest finding a way to do so.
The problem- our defenses are down.
In the Game of Thrones the great northern wall of defense was neglected during the summer and is in disrepair. Unfortunately testing and contact tracing really isn’t up to snuff even here in the Bay Area and this means that the only way we have of controlling the current spike is social distancing. (Social distancing includes wearing masks, but masks alone aren’t a complete panacea.)
The problem- local government’s slow reaction.
Our community is best served with a reopening strategy that doesn’t yo-yo back and forth between reopening and closing down. Ideally our (local) government should reopen very slowly and cautiously and be ready to pause (but not back track) reopening when cases are no longer dropping. Unfortunately despite all its caution San Francisco still moved to fast in reopening and even worse failed to pause reopening soon enough. Now we’ve got a real spike in case numbers that will be hard to control without increased social distancing (ie back-tracking the reopening plans).
The problem- increase in contagiousness?
Watching COVID-19 spike in the rest of the country, in Europe, and around the Bay Area I feel like the contagiousness of COVID-19 increases in the winter. This thought is just a hypothesis and not something that is proven. However let this play out and what does it imply. If COVID-19 actually is more contagious now, then we have to do more strict social distancing now than we were during the summer.
The solution- revert our behavior.
Look at your local case curve. Here’s a good website to do so. https://currentpatterns.com/covid19-compare/index.php or https://www.covidactnow.org. Is it going up? I bet it is. Now find the most recent point at which it was low and go back two or more weeks from that point. Do you remember what your social distancing measures were like back then? At a minimum the social distancing that you’re doing should be the same as then, and unfortunately because SARS-CoV-2 could be more contagious you may need to do social distancing more reminiscent of a month or two prior to that.
The solution- my recommendations
A big overarching theme with these recommendations is don’t give up or fatigue in this pandemic marathon, and at the same time don’t punish yourself too much when you slip up. Doing something is better than nothing.
Wear a mask when you might not otherwise. I know it feels weird to wear a mask while having a conversation with a friend because I personally feel awkward doing it, but it does make a difference. If you forget to put on a mask for 10 minutes after you’ve finished eating, it still makes a difference to put one on when you realize that you forgot.
Ask others whom you are friendly with to wear masks when they are with you. I definitely feel awkward asking my friends and family to wear masks. Sometimes leading by example helps engage the people you’re with. At other times you may need to politely ask a friend to put their mask back on after they’ve finish eating or perhaps pull their mask back up over their nose.
Shorten your time hanging out. We all need social contact, but can you be efficient about your social contact? (What a weird phrase.) If you can get a satisfying interaction with your friends in an hour and a half rather than three hours, then you’ve just cut your risk by half.
Meet outside or with good ventilation. Try to ensure that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, can’t build up to high levels. Being outside is the best way to ensure that that doesn’t happen, but it is winter and so the next best thing is opening a lot of windows and ensuring that there is airflow through whatever space you’re in.
Keep the holidays small. Limit the number of different people that you are hanging out with. If you can limit the number of different households you see in a week from 4 to 2, then you have cut your risk in half. Canada just celebrated their Thanksgiving on October 12th and saw a rise in cases because of that, Washington Post- Canadian Thanksgiving.
One of the lessons from the HIV/AIDS crisis is to not have people give up on protective measures. In the case of HIV/AIDS just because you had unprotected sex with a partner once does not mean that you are now infected with HIV. And having unprotected sex once with a partner is not a reason to throw caution to the winds and to continue having unprotected sex with that same partner. Having protected sex helps whenever you can do it.
Similarly with COVID-19 just because you met indoors unmasked with a group of people during the summer does not now mean that you always have to meet indoors and unmasked with this same group. COVID-19 cases are going up everywhere and therefore our individual and collective risk is going up to unprecedented levels. So I would argue that now is the time to reset everyone’s expectations and perhaps start wearing masks with all your friends, and/or meeting outside, or just changing finding some way to change your behavior to be more conservative. Start the conversation.