Cancel Everything

If yesterday was the day of "flatten the curve," today was the day of "cancel everything," based on the Atlantic article of the same title. This article, as well as many others like this excellent piece on Medium, suggest that people in positions of power need to take extreme measures now to cancel events, close schools, etc. to help reduce the speed of the spread of the disease. We now have two great examples to look at: China quarantined entire cities and regions, effectively containing the disease, and today is seeing a decline in active cases and few new ones being reported. Italy, on the other hand, acted much later after detecting cases, and as a result they've now shut down the entire country and hospitals and medical staff are struggling to keep up with the rising numbers of patients, dealing with a lack of equipment, and basically doing battlefield triage to save those with the best chance of surviving.

Anyway, as far as my personal cancellations are concerned, I mentioned a couple in my previous post: band practice after this week (due to the school district, not the band's decision) and my student business program (for two weeks, as of now). My senator closed his office and suspended all in-person campaign activities, plus made recommendations for consistency in school closings and avoiding public transportation and nursing homes. My favorite band postponed their March and April tour dates. I called my grandmother's house cleaner to cancel this month's cleaning (not that I don't think her house should be sanitized, I just worry about people coming in there with her). I also called my grandmother and urged her to please, every once in a while, check out a news source other than Fox News, just to see what else is out there and make sure she's getting a full picture.

I realize that I am very privileged in supporting these types of recommendations because I am in a position where it shouldn't be a major hardship for me. I plan to make a post tomorrow about this, and some considerations I've seen suggested to help people deal with prolonged closures of services.

Also, I took my temperature this afternoon because I coughed a couple times and started panicking - 97° 😅