Our recommendations for surviving boredom, loneliness, and the coronavirus.
Imagine, two weeks from now, the country is functionally in quarantine. Only groceries and pharmacies remain open, and there are limits on how many people can be inside of them at once. Other stores are closed, and many delivery services have shut down.
If this sounds dire, it’s a description of where Italy is, right now, in the coronavirus pandemic. And by some measures, we look to be following Italy’s trajectory fairly closely, with about a two-week lag. So now isn‘t a time for panic, but it is a time for preparation — to be ready for weeks or even months when much is shut down. Even if you’re in a location where stores are staying open, many of us won’t want to go into the crowded public spaces we typically frequent without another thought.
“People should be prepared to hunker down,” Dr. Caitlin Rivers at the Center for Health Security at Johns Hopkins University told Vox. “I don’t think we have turned the corner yet.”
So what do you need? How should you think about preparing? While store shelves are emptier than usual and lots of items are out of stock, many people still haven’t really thought about what the weeks and months ahead will hold — it may well be like nothing we’ve ever seen before. Here’s a guide to the essentials (and a version made for printing).
Not everyone can afford to respond by stocking up on necessities. For many people living on the margins, the virus has already disrupted paychecks and livelihoods, and more disruptions are coming. But if you can afford to make some purchases now that will make the outbreak easier to weather, you will be helping to protect your fellow citizens who can’t.
Every additional person in a store increases the odds of coronavirus spread, and many people can unknowingly be carriers. Staying home means that sick people (including those who don’t yet realize they are sick) spread the virus to fewer additional people. If on average they spread it to less than one additional person, case numbers will shrink. And even just delaying the growth in case numbers can save lives by buying us more time to prepare.
So preparing for the isolation yourself and your family may soon be facing isn’t selfish; it’s one way to help protect people who don’t have the resources to prepare themselves. It lets you avoid excursions that might get them sick. It also lets you weather problems at home, instead of clogging an urgent care center or the emergency room when both are likely to be overwhelmed.
If you can afford to buy some things that will enable you to ride out social distancing, local supply shocks, school closings, and potentially getting sick, it’s a sensible thing to do. That said, don’t panic buy enormous quantities of things you won’t need. Making it harder for other people to get those things actually puts you in greater danger!
Here is an expanded version of the guide above on some purchases that might make an unnerving few weeks go a little more smoothly.
Keeping your living quarters, personal appliances, and surfaces clean is not just good general practice — it’s increasingly important as we learn more about how the coronavirus can spread and linger on devices like phones. But that doesn’t mean you need to douse everything in Lysol; some basic household products and good practices will help a great deal.
“Wash your hands much more than you think you need to wash your hands,” Dr. Rebecca Katz, Director of the Center for Global Health Science and Security at Georgetown University, told me. “it’s not satisfactory because people feel they should be doing much more, but at this point it’s the best advice we can be giving.” Don’t neglect the more important basic measures that can protect your health and safety just because now much more intense precautions have been added as well.
The food supply chain is not going to break down. and hoarding can cause problems, but “people might want to slowly start to stock up on enough nonperishable food to last their households through several weeks of social distancing at home,” risk communications experts Jody Lanard and Peter Sandman have written. You should be planning for interruptions and inconveniences, but needn’t fear a famine.
Looking at how the coronavirus has played out in other countries, it seems likely that people will need to plan for less frequent access to grocery stores, and if they get sick they might not want to go out shopping at all. It’s also possible many communities might be home for a long time, potentially months, so boredom is a real concern as many public activities are limited. Consider buying:
So be prepared to treat everything from home: do you have rehydration fluids? bandages? Over-the-counter meds? Antiseptic wipes? Cold packs? Things like food poisoning or stomach flu can be safely treated at home unless you’re “unable to keep down any fluids and have symptoms of dehydration,” Dixon-Luinenburg said. Cuts can be treated at home with gauze to stop the bleeding, polysporin, and bandages unless there are “signs of infection (area is warm, very tender, swollen, red, or draining pus), or if bleeding won’t stop,” she told me.
“For injuries that might be sprains/might be broken, probably this pushes toward waiting it out and treating with ice + rest + painkillers, rather than immediately going to the ER to check. (If you can put weight on it, it’s probably not broken). If your arm is bent in two pieces, though, it is definitely broken and cannot be dealt with at home.”
As I told my 3-year-old yesterday, doctors are very busy and it’s a bad time for acrobatics on the stairs — and a bad time to be unprepared if your 3-year-old does them anyway.
Many states initially announced shutdowns for a few weeks. But experts say that we should expect things to be closed for much longer than that. “I think we will continue to see an expansion of the epidemic here in the US,” Rivers told me. “I think we will also see corresponding mitigation measures.” So you should expect that it may be months before you can return to your normal life. Plan what you’ll need to keep yourself and your family entertained at home.
According to data from China, for around 80 percent of people that contract coronavirus, the symptoms are mild. “Mild,” though, doesn’t mean that it’ll just be a cold — it just means that you won’t require hospitalization. It may still be the worst flu of your life.
Getting by at home, though, means that hospital beds can be reserved for those who need them. “If you are doing fine at home you should stay at home,” Rivers told me.
So stock up on things that help you get through a bad fever and a bad cough, plus some other unpleasant symptoms. That probably includes:
But for me, the oximeter was mostly useful for anxiety — I could slip it on my finger and be reassured that I was likely not very sick and didn’t need a doctor at all.
If self-care at home isn’t enough, you should call ahead before seeking medical attention so that precautions can be taken, experts say. “If you do start to get worried you’re not doing well at home, you can call your doctor’s office or call the emergency room,” Rivers told me. “Call ahead so they know you’re coming and can make sure you’re not sitting in the waiting room.”
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Author: Kelsey Piper
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