‘Social Distancing’ is said to be the key to combating and containing the coronavirus. What does it mean and why is it important? Well, consider the experience of northern Italy.
“Two weeks ago,” reports Yascha Mounk in The Atlantic,
Italy had 322 confirmed cases of the coronavirus… One week ago, Italy had 2,502 cases of the virus… Today, Italy has 10,149 cases of the coronavirus.
There are now simply too many patients for each one of them to receive adequate care. Doctors and nurses are unable to tend to everybody. They lack machines to ventilate all those gasping for air.
Tragically, because Italian hospitals and medical facilities are overwhelmed, with many more coronavirus-infected patients than they can handle, they must make heart-wrenching decisions about whom to care for and whom to let die. They literally have no other choice.
Social Distancing. “But if Italy is in an impossible position, the obligation facing the United States is very clear,” Mounk writes:
To arrest the crisis before the impossible becomes necessary. This means that our political leaders, the heads of business and private associations, and every one of us need to work together to accomplish two things:
Radically expand the capacity of the country’s intensive-care units. And start engaging in extreme forms of social distancing.
This is fast occurring. Maryland, for instance, has closed its public schools and banned public gatherings of 250 or more people because of the coronavirus. Michigan, likewise, is literally shuttering its public schools until April 6.
Moreover, according to CBS Sports:
- The National Basketball Association (NBA) has suspended regular season play, indefinitely.
- The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has canceled the 2020 Division 1 men’s and women’s basketball tournaments. No “March Madness,” not this year.
- The National Hockey League has put a halt to all of its games.
- “Major League Baseball has canceled the remainder of spring training and is pushing back the start of the regular season by at least two weeks.”
- “Michigan, Notre Dame and Ohio State have all canceled their spring football games.”
The indefinite suspension of these treasured sporting traditions is, of course, sad and disappointing. But as Mounk points out, “Only one measure has been effective against the coronavirus: extreme social distancing.” So we really have no choice.
Canceling these large indoor gatherings, explain Scott Gottlieb and Caitlin M. Rivers in the Washington Post, “will help mitigate the spread of [the virus], slowing it down and allowing medical facilities to deal with the sickest among us without being overwhelmed.”
To be sure, this will cause significant economic pain and dislocation—look, for instance, at the dramatic collapse in the U.S. stock market—but that is a temporary and short-term phenomenon.
What is most important is averting the calamitous and heart-wrenching tragedy that we see unfolding in northern Italy. And we all have a role to play in that.
Scrupulously avoid large public gatherings, especially those that are indoors or in enclosed environments; try to telework if you can; and remain inside your home—or out in the countryside—away from others to the greatest extent possible.
Most of all: keep your distance. Keep your “social distance.”
Feature photo credit: FlattenTheCurve.com via Jackson Hole News and Guide.