>This is going to cost you money, time, and opportunity<p>herein lies the problem. everyone knows the virus is costing time and money. but how much do you want to bet that unscrupulous people are going to want to try to keep their employees working in-office or on their retail sites so that their bottom line doesn't get hammered as hard?<p>without a public health response mandating certain measures -- a response which the US public health bodies have been woefully slow to initiate -- many people will be left at risk.<p>then there's the other issue: what do we do about people who can't afford to stop working or work remotely? at present, we have no plan. these people are a ticking time bomb because our political apparatus refuses to mobilize in response to this threat.
Masks aren't really an individual thing that will keep you safe if only you wear it, but it helps if you look at a population that wears masks vs doesn't wear masks. If masks are worn by a certain percentage of the population, it's been shown to put a halt to influenza pandemics (according to a paper posted late last week). It stops people from touching their mouth, and stops infected people from spreading their germs to others. It's one of the reasons why the coronavirus hasn't taken hold in Hong Kong more than it has.<p>The reason it's not been recommended in the US is because it's not really part of our culture, and so we don't have a huge supply of them. Medical workers need them the most. But if we did have enough, yes they're definitely recommended.
"Masks are actually not recommended, but won’t make anything worse" - sounds very short-sighted to me. If a lot of people start buying and wearing masks just because it makes them feel safer, people who might actually need masks (i.e. medical personnel) might have trouble getting them...
It's only a matter of time before school closures begin. For working parents with school-aged children, that essentially means no available working time. I'm surprised there's not more attention being paid to this.
I got curious about the US laws related to involuntary quarantine, last night. The federal government can only quarantine you as you enter the country or cross state lines. In Massachusetts, the state can quarantine you to a hospital or your home, and the compensation for lost wages is not to exceed $2 a day! It's a good time to be working remotely.
I'm impressed by the Norwegian health authorities' response thus far, and society's receptability. We have 19 confirmed cases, and more or less everyone who has met a confirmed infected individual is (strongly) encouraged to self-quarantine for two weeks. Working from home if possible, staying off work if not. This means that 100-300 people are self-quarantining at the moment.<p>It's costly in terms of lost time, but it's much less costly than a full-scale epidemic will be. Will be very interesting to see whether these measures work. My gut feeling says we'll have a full-scale epidemic regardless, but hopefully with a lower peak that the healthcare system will be able to handle.
I find this article a huge overreaction and at the same time an underestimation of the spread of the coming Corona pandemic.<p>To start with the latter: this virus cannot be contained anymore, at best it can be slowed down. Which means that sooner or later we all will get it. So the extreme measures to isolate yourself from your environment in hopes of not getting contaminated are a waste of time and resources.<p>On the other hand, for normal healthy people, who seem to be the group at which this article is targeted, the infection is not much worse than influenza. Many people don't even realize they have it.<p>"Take the loss" is the only reasonable paragraph in the article.