The Beginning of Our Story
Infected Worldwide: 92,830
Deaths Worldwide: 3,160
Infected United States: 123
Deaths United States: 7
Infected New Jersey: 0
Deaths New Jersey: 0
Infected New York: 6
Deaths New York: 0
Infected Long Island: 0
Deaths Long Island: 0
I am going to begin this with a few assumptions:
1) COVID-19, the Coronavirus, will spread to the majority of Americans.
2) Myself and my family members will all most likely become infected.
3) I will personally know between one to four people who will die from the virus.
I try and live my life by the super cliché: “Grant me the serenity to accept the things i cannot change, the courage to change the things i can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
Things are the way they are and i cannot change them. Living by that i can i say i don’t scare easily and when i do say that know that i mean it. I try not to worry too much about things, get stressed out unduly, or let too many things bring me down. I am usually successful. It took years of patient practice, but it is who i am now. I’m not one to give into fear and panic.
All that said i live by one real ideal: common sense.
I try and be decent and understanding to my fellow man and woman, to my family, to those around me. I try and be kind and i try and be open. I don’t like to be but i can be judgmental. I forgive myself that as it is hard to escape falling into that trap in today’s world. These things i achieve with varying levels of success. However, the one thing more than anything else i always try to stick to is common sense.
So without giving in to fear and using a little common sense what conclusions can we draw about COVID-19?
1) COVID-19, the Coronavirus, will spread to the majority of Americans.
This is an easy conclusion to come to. There are many ways in which the attempt to curb the spread of the virus has been bungled by authorities and individuals, not just here in the United States, but abroad as well. Common sense says maybe we don’t move infected from an isolated location without taking basic precautions and expect to be able to contain the outbreak. Especially when those being moved themselves feel it is a bad idea. I plan to go into deeper detail in the future about the missteps that have lead us to where we are now, but regardless, the virus is out now. There is an outside chance that it can be slowed down; however, stopping it at this point, is not happening.
The real question is: How quickly will it spread to the rest of America?
My own common sense estimate is three to six months, and even that, i feel, could be generous. It is possible it will move much more quickly and aggressively than that. The virus can live in a host for two weeks without any outward signs of symptoms. After that some people who are infected may not even realize they are because the symptoms in some cases are very mild to nonexistent. They may think they just have a cold or light case of the flu or feel nothing at all. This entire time they are infecting people they come into direct and casual contact with. Keeping in mind how many people one person can come into contact with in a single day, how incredibly contagious the virus is, and the idea of six degrees of separation, a picture starts to develop of a very hastened spread throughout the United States.
2) Myself and my family members will all most likely become infected.
Based on all that was said above this seems a forgone conclusion.
I live with my wife Barbara (not her real name), also to be referred to as Babs, our 4-yeard old son Adam (not his real name), our 2-year old daughter Lydia (not her real name). We also care for 13-year old Orange Cat and 12-year old Black Cat. The cats are inconsequential as of now, but there have been reports of dogs becoming infected, so the cats could potentially play a much larger role later.
My son is in preschool and will likely transition to kindergarten next school year. He is most likely to become exposed first, though that is not a certainty by any means.
I work for Nameless Television Corporation in a small, hardly ventilated, control room i think of as The Fish Bowl. It is quite possible that i could become exposed first. I am the wise and stately age of 41 yet a majority of my coworkers are between 20 and 30. They go to bars and clubs, they date, they party, they travel, they live their best lives, coming into contact with more and more people as they do so.
My wife is a secretary working a few days a week for Unnamed Auction House. Her contact with others is much more minimal than myself and my son as she only works with a handful of people.
My daughter, other than a trip to the playground or play place, is the least exposed.
It really could be any one of us, but my money would be on my son.
This leaves myself and my wife in a precarious position. We are, of course, both terrified for our children more than anything. In fact, if it weren’t for them i probably wouldn’t be giving any of this much thought. However, having children puts us in a somewhat more vulnerable spot than those who don’t. Not to mention that if one of us were to get sick and need to be isolated we couldn’t be there to take care of our children and we’d be unable to work and provide for them.
There is no reason to believe that, no matter how cautious we try and be, we are going to dodge this. I do not have the luxury of working from home, so when this really begins to escalate i will most likely still be going to work.
My family and i will all become infected.
3) I will personally know between one to four people who will die from the virus.
The mortality rate as of now stands at about 2%. There are reasons to believe it could be higher and there are reasons to believe it could be lower. Let’s just go with the 2% estimate for now.
This is a big sticking point for people who are trying to say that this is no big deal, the majority of us won’t die so we shouldn’t be so worried. This leaves out the fact that most of us will still get sick, some gravely so, just that we won’t die. Let’s ignore that for now and do some simple math.
2% translates to 1 in 50. How many people does one person know? I had assumed that it was easily between 50 to 150 but i just looked it up and statistics say that most people know on average 600 people. I am not sure if they include celebrities, people you haven’t spoken to in a long time, or past coworkers, so let’s just go with a more modest estimate of 200. Between family, friends, and coworkers, the average person easily knows 200 people.
2% of 200 is 4.
Four people.
All of us will know personally four people who will die as a result of the Coronavirus.
All of us.
2% doesn’t sound so low anymore when you look at it from that perspective.
This is where our story begins.
In the next entry i will explain who i am and why i am writing this blog. Until then i think is enough to digest for now.
Thank you for reading.
-Bob
For more information on the Coronavirus and how to protect yourself click HERE.
For more information on the spread of the Coronavirus click HERE and HERE.
