St. Louis friends: A lot of stuff happened today and it probably feels really scary. But it might be less frightening if we break down what is going on, and why.
The newsroom today was flooded with stories about tons of businesses, sports teams, schools etc, shutting down bc of coronavirus. This feels downright dystopian but it actually helps the situation from getting really bad. It's like fixing a cavity before you need to pull a tooth.
Public health people call it community or social distancing. It's simple: the less densely packed everyone is, the less likely people are to spread the virus around, even if they themselves are healthy.
I am POSITIVE you've seen this graph today bc it's a Very Good Graph. Social distancing keeps the rate of infection from rising exponentially. That keeps hospitals, clinics from overloading and makes docs available to help the people who really, really need it. 
Even if you're not sick, just going out into a crowd can spread the virus. All it takes is for one mildly sick person to cough onto another person, and they can spread it to a person who might have heart disease or another problem, and that can be deadly.
This can be hard to parse, because the novel coronavirus is spread through spit droplets of people who are infected. So if everyone's healthy, we should all be able to go to the concert, right?
Maybe in a perfect world. But you never know who's coming down with something. It could be as small as someone ignoring a small headache and heading to the club! BC we're not testing everyone and don't know for certain who has the virus, assuming everyone could spread it is key.
So! Where does this leave us? It means life is going to suck now so it doesn't super-suck later. Like everything, this is going to suck way more for people who are socially or economically disadvantaged who don't have a stable job.
Here are just a few things that were canceled in STL this week:
-Blues games
-Spring Training
-Gatherings of more than 1,000 people in the city
-Multiple university classes
-The STL Style party (v important)
-Blues games
-Spring Training
-Gatherings of more than 1,000 people in the city
-Multiple university classes
-The STL Style party (v important)
Again, this feels scary as hell, right? But if we look at other countries' responses to the virus, we know that this will help everyone get through this more quickly and safely.
Just this year, Singapore implemented these measures and their covid cases were relatively stable compared with other countries. And lest we forget, social distancing during the 1918 flu epidemic let St. Louis emerge relatively well compared with other cities.
We have to embrace the spirit of 1918! It's hard. I have been looking forward to a Talking Heads Cover Band concert in Chicago I had been planning for weeks, and have decided not to go : (
But we need to harness some stirring feelings of patriotism and think of the common good.
But we need to harness some stirring feelings of patriotism and think of the common good.
In the meantime, use your fear to motivate you to prepare and contain the virus if you can. Also use it to motivate you to help those who this is going to hit hard: donate to a food pantry, leave a monster tip somewhere. We will probably cover this more in days to come.
Any way that's it! Tell me your questions and i'll try to get them answered. Also, visit the STL Coronavirus monster-blog-scroll (updated in REAL TIME) here: news.stlpublicradio.org/post/live-upda…
Here’s a video of my sister’s cat on a treadmill
