[Callers] Thoughts on the coronavirus and dances

A fellow dancing friend of mine in Seattle recently wrote up these thoughts on the Covid-19 outbreak, and attending (or hosting) dances. They seemed really thoughtful and on-point, so I wanted to pass them along to the list. The friend said, regarding credit and passing this on further, it's "more important the info spreads than that I get credit" -- so if there are others in the community you think would benefit from hearing this, please pass it on. Jesse --------- Seattle folk: data from both the Covid-19 outbreak in China and also studies of the Spanish Flu of 1918 [* see below for links] indicate that the social distancing measures are most effective at reducing community disease spread when started /as early as possible/ after an outbreak is identified. That’s why the county recommended avoided gathering in large groups and cancelling events /now/ - because the earlier we start reducing exponential spread, the less people all get sick at once, and the less hospitals are overwhelmed and the less that 20% of people who need hospitalization for respiratory support die due to an overtaxed hospital system. Please keep in mind that at a social dance, especially contra, a viral disease that is contagious through exhaled droplets like Covid-19 is /far/ more likely to be transmitted than other group settings: you touch 40+ people in less than ten minutes, breathe heavily in close proximity to their faces, wipe sweat off your face or out of your eyes regularly, and generally don’t stop to wash your hands between every dance or when you get a drink. Also, remember that this is an infection that can have asymptomatic spread and has an average of 5 day onset (and can be contagious before symptoms). It’s not like norovirus, where you’re absolutely going to know really quickly - you could totally be exposed to someone and not know it, or be pre-symptomatic and still feel fine enough to dance. I’m not going to make a lot of noise about if I agree with continuing to hold contra dances in Seattle this week, but if you want to go, please think about this first: Empathy is hard. Empathy for those you don’t know and can’t see is known scientifically to be one of the hardest things to engender in people. When it’s our close contacts at risk of injury or illness or death, we’re far more emotionally driven to act in ways that protect them; when it’s an amorphous group of unspecified strangers who might be impacted we’re far, far more likely to not care because we have no emotional attachment to them driving our behavior. And when you’re asked to weigh the abstract choice of protecting people you don’t know in the future over doing something you really love today, well... there’s lots of research that tells us what behavioral choice tends to win out. But we’re facing a genuine pandemic that threatens to very quickly overwhelm our medical system, and so we have to force ourselves to think a little more critically about the implications of our potential actions. So in that vein, I want to ask you to consider the ethics of action during a disease spread when you live in a densely packed urban area like we do. If we know we can save the lives of people around us by avoiding gathering in groups where transmission is probably, do we have a responsibility to make that choice? Another thing to think about: we willingly burden ourselves with the responsibility of getting flu shots to protect the vulnerable around us by preventing the spread of a disease we understand well and have established and supported treatment protocols for. Does the extent to which we’re willing to be inconvenienced to protect those same vulnerable people scale with the possible severity and amount of unknowns around a new disease? Should it? Also, who bears the responsibility for the people who die or are disabled from a severe illness in situations like this, if the data clearly shows that one type of action will save lives long-term and yet large groups make the opposite choice? You don’t have to tell me your answers. What’s important to me is that you’ve thought them through. Like I think is true for everyone reading this, I have quite a number of important people in my life who are high-risk: they’re older or chronically ill or immunosuppressed. My highest priority is to do my part in limiting disease spread even this early, before it seems “bad enough” to need to avoid groups of people, because I want to give those high-risk people I know - and also all the other strangers in the country who are facing similar challenges - the best shot of surviving this. In pursuit of that goal, I think it’s important to already change my behavior even if it’s inconvenient and less fun: I won’t be going to be dancing for a while.  I’m not going to criticize you for making a different choice at this point, if you’ve truly thought the risks and impact of that through, but I also probably won’t be seeing you for a while because I’m not willing to take that risk on behalf of the folk whose health I’m prioritizing.  [* Here’s that source on how crucial early social distancing was at preventing the even more rapid overwhelming spread of Spanish Flu. It was bad, but it could have been far worse in cities without social distancing measures being implemented early: https://jamanetwork.com/jo urnals/jama/fullarticle/208354  And here's the study from China: https://www.worldpop.org/events/COVID_ NPI ]