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

(tried to send earlier, but it didn't seem to make it thru -- pardon
the duplication if both go thru)

---------

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 ]
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