My husband and I began to social distance, as its called, in early March after COVID-19 cases began to flare across the US. We hunkered down even more at the beginning of April when the governor of North Carolina signed a thirty-day Stay-at-Home order that allowed just about everyone to go out for a variety of reasons. So what have we been doing?
- My husband is a pastor, so he was able to keep up with his pastoral duties, doing visitations via calls, some services via Facebook Live, and having drive-in services on Sunday morning (governor stated that was okay, as it should be since there is zero risk to attendees.)
- I've been able to work my part-time job. At home, I keep busy with hobbies. To date, I've crocheted eighteen 20 x 20 Diamond-Motif squares for an afghan. I've also been making masks. That hasn't been going as well since I barely know how to sew, but I have made a few decent masks that I was able to hand out.
- We've tried to support stores by shopping online, but they and shipping services are overwhelmed. Orders take forever to arrive, and I've received the wrong product with no response from customer service, so we put a stop to that.
- We're doing our own hair. My husband cut his--and did a surprisingly good job for his first time--and we colored mine. It's now a darker auburn to better match my roots, thus eliminating the need to repeat that traumatic action.
And we should. The primary reason for social isolation has never been about saving lives--that's the secondary goal. I say this because tens of thousands of people die from the flu each year* and absolutely no social isolation regulations are put into place. The main goal of social distancing has been to prevent hospitals and medical personnel from being overwhelmed by COVID cases as they have in Italy and in New York.
That's not to say we can run out throwing caution to the wind. Preventative measures are still needed, but home quarantine for the vast majority of the population is not. Those who are concerned, who are elderly, and those who have underlying medical conditions should continue to quarantine themselves as best as possible, taking precautions when they do go out. Family members of those people need to take precautions as well if they plan to visit them. Otherwise, the rest of us should be able to go about our business as we did when we completely ignored the threat of deadly flu.
I'm ready. We're all ready. It's time to get out.
*CDC estimates that the burden of illness during the 2018–2019 season included an estimated 35.5 million people getting sick with influenza, 16.5 million people going to a health care provider for their illness, 490,600 hospitalizations, and 34,200 deaths from influenza (Table 1).
I cannot find data for the 2019-2020 season, but as of Feb 2020, over 20,000 have died from the flu.