Coming out of stay-at-home- Part 2

If you have not read Part 1, please read it first, otherwise this will appear one-sided. I’m aiming for a balanced look from the middle. https://www.facebook.com/sudhasue.royappa/posts/10158027271274631?

Continuing from Part 1, where we discussed the importance of long term Social Distancing..

Prolonged stay-at-home orders in the hope of virtually eliminating all risk would require everyone to stay at home for many months, maybe even years. But for most people, this is not a viable option. They won’t have money for medications or doctors’ visits to manage their chronic diseases like heart disease, diabetes and depression, and they are going to start dying from them sooner. They won’t have money to buy food, pay rent or utilities. There are already reports of increased child abuse and domestic violence from people being forced into prolonged close-quarter living in less than ideal situations.

That being said, we should not come out of stay-at-home orders in an irresponsible way, without social distancing, losing all that we gained in the past weeks. Neither should we stop living while being alive, allowing panic and hysteria to drive our feelings, thoughts, behaviors and decisions. We have always been willing to accept some level of risk as a society so that we can continue our activities of daily living. So we need to now accept that some people are going to get sick and die from the coronavirus just like people die from car accidents, flu, and other things. We will have to first allow the lowest risk groups, people younger than 20, to start developing immunity through exposure, then stagger exposure of higher risk groups as treatments become available. We must protect our elderly and most vulnerable for as long as possible until effective vaccines are available since they have an unacceptably high risk of death from this virus.

Social distancing allows us to minimize risks while still carrying on with many aspects of our lives. We may not be able to go to large parties, sporting events and concerts, but many of us will still be able to go to work with precautions and judiciously socialize in smaller groups. Some hard hit states like NY may need to continue stay-at-home orders until the danger of running out of health workers, beds and ventilators is past. However, for the rest of us, in the long run,  we need social distancing, not stay-at-home orders.

Based on questions that I’m getting from people, there appears to be a fair amount of confusion about stay-at-home orders and what to expect when these orders are lifted. I am breaking this post into two parts.