This is not directed at you individually, but to all humans (me included).
This is basic hygiene! If you aren’t already doing these things, you’re wrong! Your mother most likely told you to wash your hands a thousand times. It is not a groundbreaking new idea in 2020. Seriously, if everyone had been doing these things as a matter of habit, we might not even be having this conversation.
I’m not excluding myself. It took a record-breaking flu outbreak to make me start paying attention to my hand washing habits and where I put my hands at the parks. And I was in my 40’s! When I started paying attention, and when I stopped getting sick as often, I didn’t feel like a genius. I felt like an idiot. To prove that I wasn’t through being an idiot, I never thought about the importance and relative simplicity of wiping down my tray table and armrests on an airplane until this outbreak kicked off. What is wrong with me?
My greatest hope is that when this passes, and it will, we don’t all lapse back into our filthy and inexcusably careless former ways. We could avoid a lot of nonsense (like toilet paper shortages) in the future.
While this is true, there is evidence out there and there are experts in the field that have drawn conclusions based on the best information possible. Yesterday, the WHO said that they believe the death rates is somewhere around 3.4%, which is roughly 5X greater than the flu. These are the some of the best people in the world at understanding these types of things, and they have the most up to date, reliable information available to draw conclusions from. This is more than a hunch or a gut feeling, and I trust the experts’ conclusion drawn from evidence more than I trust a hunch.
And the other thing that’s important here, that’s not being talked about, is that there are lots of people in our communities that rely on healthy individuals to protect them. I may catch coronavirus and it may seem like just the flu. But if I stop at the grocery store before I know I have it I could expose an infant with an immune system that’s not fully developed, or a cancer patient with a compromised immune system.
Choosing whether or not to travel (to WDW, or china, or Seattle or anywhere) is mostly about the amount of risk you are comfortable with. But your choices you make after you return could have potentially fatal consequences for people who are relying on their community to protect them. THAT is why some workplaces are calling for self-quarantine after travel to certain places. And it is a completely reasonable request based on the recommendations of experts in the field.
As helpful as washing hands and hygiene is, it is doubtful it would make that much of a difference.
Most people will spread/catch respiratory illnesses like this via what they breath in through their lungs. A person sneezes, the virus is suspended in the air like an aerosol, and the next person breathes it into their lungs, where it takes hold.
Sure, washing hands can help…but truth is, if I’m in the store (or wherever) and a person sneezes in aisle 2 while I’m in aisle 1, then I round the corner into aisle 2, no amount of hand washing is going to reduce my chances of breathing in the virus. (Nor does wearing a surgical mask, actually…unless you’re the one with the virus!)
Honestly I never do any of this - I wash my hands after using the toilet and if they get visibly dirty, and I clean my house but I’m not fanatical about it. And we very rarely get sick.
Written by a person whose livelihood is travel and is not a medical expert. He admits right from the get-go he’s not a medical professional. But he cites some statistics which are both incorrect AND doesn’t bother to link to any reliable source. In this case I’m talking about him saying what the mortality rates are.
And he doesn’t mention anything about the risk he is putting his community in.
This is certainly a counterperspective, but I would argue a misinformed & wreckless one.
A travel expert’s advice SHOULD NOT be equally weighted with a medical professional (or CDC, WHO or other) when considering a potential pandemic.
We, as individuals, have to choose whom we will trust as “experts.” We also have to choose whether or not to be swept up in the politicization of non-political events. I really don’t want to go down this rabbit hole in this venue, so let me just say that I choose to ignore the politics and give credence to the opinions of experts who appear to be operating above that fray. The hunches and counter-hunches of certain prominent figures and their adversaries notwithstanding.
I had H1N1 and it was the sickest I ever was. That was 10 years ago last October, yet I’m still not great at washing my hands before I eat and I touch my face two hundred times a day. I think I’ve had one other miserable URI since then (couldn’t be avoided - we were in a beach vacation rental with four other families, one of whom arrived with a terrible URI and we were living together). I just don’t care too much about getting sick.
Me either. I wouldn’t bother travel if I had all these Monk-style steps to go through.
I don’t even look for bedbugs.
I might end up with Coronavirus, but I am far more worried about hitting a deer on my way to Walmart later.
We actually avoid it (and other touchy things) more because of our kids’ nut allergies - first time we were on line for WtP, a couple in front of us broke out a bag of almonds and ate them by the handful.
I could see our then DD7 tense up as the line slowly moved (our DS10 was oblivious), then they walked right up to the honey wall and wiped their hands over the whole thing.
Mine’s a toss up between malaria and a severe case of food poisoning that put me in the hospital. Corona virus is going to have to step it up to get on my radar.
I teach middle school in Northern Colorado. On my way to work today, I came upon one car rollover (left the interstate and ended up on the other side of the frontage road) and also a delivery truck had gone off the road and hit a large sign. After seeing these events, I thought that my trip to Dallas next week and my trip to WDW in May could possibly be less dangerous than my commute to work. Don’t get me wrong, I am concerned about getting sick (some seventh graders can be gross), but I didn’t stop traveling after 9/11. My family was even evacuated from London Heathrow because of a bomb scare in 2007. If WDW closes or SW cancels flights, I won’t go. We do have friends in their 70s who were scheduled to go on a cruise around Asia. The cruise was cancelled and we were glad they didn’t go. I could be holding them to a different standard than I hold my own family to…
I’m sorry in advance as I know this isn’t helpful - and I’m truly sorry you are having to endure this. My advice - next time, don’t tell your family. I practically NEVER tell extended family about my vacation plans because of stuff like this. I know the amount of judgement I will face (either aggressively or passive agressively). The “eye-rolling” remarks like “must be nice to afford a Disney vacation” or “I can’t believe you are putting your family at risk” just kills me. Anyway - back off my soapbox - the less my family knows about my vacations, the better. Unfortunately, Facebook and Insta have ruined the ability to keep it a total secret, but better they find out that I’m there DURING my trip than 3 months before
