What Can You REALLY Do to Minimize Your Risk of Contagion

I talked with several experts on infectious diseases about the coronavirus threat. I reached out to these experts because I have a severely compromised respiratory system. If I catch this thing, I’m a dead duck. This is the consensus of their recommendations:

Right now, the consensus of opinion is that this is an airborne virus, which means that it can survive outside the host…but we don’t know how long it can survive. It could be minutes. It could be days. (Things are changing very rapidly. By the time this gets published, some of this information may already be outdated. Fair warning.)

The number one recommendation I got from each expert was always the same: DON’T PANIC.

You are going to see a lot of worrisome information, some of it coming from the CDC and other government agencies, who don’t really know very much more than we do about what’s happening right now. You are also going to see a whole lot of garbage coming from various “scientific” journals via social media along with outright, alarmist fabrications. You can already feel the rising tide of hysteria all around us.

Don’t panic. There are currently 80,000 cases of this bug reported worldwide in a population of 7.7 billion, which means that your chances of catching this thing are  0.00001 or one in a million, give or take an order of magnitude. With a cumulative death rate of three percent, your odds of dying from this thing are one out of 2400. (My odds are  much higher.)

The number one precaution in a pre-pandemic situation is frequent hand washing.

How frequent?

Before you eat anything, drink anything, cook anything, or open any container holding something that you plan to ingest, you should stop and disinfect  your hands.

Make sure you have a large supply of disinfectant lotions. These will quickly disappear from store shelves. If that happens, use anti-bacterial dish washing liquids, isopropyl alcohol or hydrogen peroxide to disinfect your hands.

Avoid going out in public unless absolutely necessary.

This is going to put a severe crimp in the Democratic party’s primary process because, once the cat is out of the bag and the pandemic has been declared, it is absolutely essential that you avoid all unnecessary contact with strangers.

This means eating at home instead of restaurants, because restaurants will be a primary transmitter of contagion from other diners and from the restaurant staff. It also means no trips to the malls, cinemas, museums, galleries, bars, sporting events, weddings, funerals or religious services. All of these venues are dangerous hot spots for the transmission of communicable diseases. That haircut can wait a few more days, and you really don’t need a pedicure as much as you need to stay healthy.

Cut back on all shopping. Stay away from the malls. There have been recommendations that you do your shopping online, but that means you are inviting someone who may be ill or may be carrying the disease without knowing it to deliver packages to your door.  If you do that, spray the  package with a disinfectant spray before bringing it into the house.  If you can do without that doodad, don’t buy it. Yes, this will put a crimp in the gross domestic product, but so will a few million dead consumers.

(I just received a delivery from Amazon. I am afraid to go out and retrieve it and we haven’t even hit the pandemic stage yet.)

Stockpiling supplies

We go through this every year in South Florida during hurricane season. it is very difficult to stock up on fresh food for more than a few days. Canned goods are better than frozen foods because your refrigerator and freezer have a limited capacity but you can store an unlimited amount of canned goods in your home. Not tasty? Okay, would you prefer to starve to death instead of dying from the pandemic?

No, the power isn’t going to go out because of the pandemic, and you don’t have to board up your windows, but you might want to invest in some extra batteries, a new flashlight and emergency medical supplies.

Don’t Worry About Water

You do not need to stockpile water. While it might be technically possible for the water  supply to become infected, that is highly unlikely. Some genius from the Centers for Disease Control recommended stockpiling enough water for two weeks. At one gallon per day per person, you would need to store 56 gallons of water to provide a two-week supply for a family of four, but there is no reason to suppose that you will only need a two week supply. You are much better off getting a high quality water purification system that can process one gallon at a time. It will also be much cheaper. If you are really paranoid, just boil your tap water, let it cool and then pass it through the water filter, although you don’t even need to do that if you have boiled your water.

A  Caveat about Water

If you live in an area where you still have septic systems and well water, you have a special problem because it is at least faintly possible that an overloaded septic system can contaminate your well water. This is HIGHLY unlikely, but it isn’t impossible.

Washing Fruit and Vegetables:  Wash Everything

When you go shopping for food, you could be bringing contagious items into your home. Therefore, wash everything when you bring it into the house, not when you are about to use it. Wear disposable gloves and a mask. Wash fruits and vegetables. Wash all waterproof containers (glass or plastic.) Lightly spray cardboard containers with a disinfectant spray and wipe dry immediately.

Practice Safe Biocontainment At Home               

Unless things get really bad, one or more members of your household will probably be going off to work or school on a daily basis. This is unavoidable.

Here, we have to digress to discuss the fact that, so far, this disease has a death rate of two or three percent, which is an order of magnitude greater than the seasonal flu.  The people who are most at risk from this particular bug are the very young, the very old, and those like me with compromised immune and respiratory and cardiovascular systems.

IT IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT THAT PEOPLE WHO ARE LEAVING THE HOME TO GO TO WORK OR SCHOOL MINIMIZE THE RISK OF CONTAGION FOR ANY FAMILY MEMBER IN THESE CATEGORIES…AND HERE’S HOW YOU DO THAT:

When you come home after an excursion out into the world, you should IMMEDIATELY disrobe completely, put your clothes in  plastic bag, shower, and dress in clean clothes. DO THIS BEFORE YOU HUG OR KISS ANYONE. As a matter of fact, hugging and kissing might just be something to put on hold until the crisis is over.

DO NOT FORGET YOUR SHOES. In fact, cultivate the Japanese practice of not wearing shoes in your home.

Travel Restrictions

Cancel any cruises you may have booked. it is not a good idea to go on a cruise right now.  You might also think twice about getting on a commercial aircraft or a passenger train because these environments are germ incubators. Commercial aircraft recirculate the air in the cabin. On passenger trains you are in close proximity with strangers.

The most dangerous places on these conveyances are the rest rooms. Rest rooms in aircraft, trains, terminals and other public places are incubators that should be avoided  because many people will be using those facilities and no one is cleaning them after each use.

EQUIPMENT

High quality air filtration masks are  obvious. Buy them now because they will soon disappear off the shelves.  Disposable plastic gloves are another must have item. Disinfectants of various kinds. Isopropyl alcohol and hydrogen peroxide are cheap, but they are not kind to your skin. Stock up on the standard remedies for coughs, colds, nausea, pain medications, fever reducers. Check your thermometers to make sure they are working.

Get the Flu Shot Now

I’ve never been a fan of the seasonal flu vaccine because it is always based on one strain of last year’s seasonal flu and a significant number of people who get the vaccine get the flu anyway…but this year, it is a must because you don’t want to come down with the seasonal flu in the middle of a pandemic. With hospitals struggling to handle the pandemic cases, they don’t you coming in with your seasonal flu too. Consider it a civic duty.

So, having said all that, I just went and brought the  Amazon shipment into the house, and we are going out to dinner tonight to celebrate the last day of my fourth and final year on the board of directors.  Then, I will go to the board meeting, where I will shakes hands with and get breathed upon by a lot of people who could be incubating the virus without even knowing it.

You really can’t fix stupid.