COVID 19 Outbreak
(March 2, 2020)
I posted on Facebook a link to the WHO recommendations for event directors and organizers, and now am getting a flood of private questions. I am not an expert or doctor, and have no education or training in pandemics or infectious disease outbreaks. I have my own personal opinions, and that's it.
I'm being asked if it's safe to go to local dances, and what to do about events. I can't tell anyone what to do, I can only speak for myself and my husband.
Here's my take:
The virus is extremely contagious, and is spreading rapidly. Because symptoms don't show up for weeks, or never at all, or can be confused with a cold, allergies, or flu - and because (in the US) we do not have any test yet to determine if you've caught it or not, and because they're assuming it's already widely in the community but undetected, symptoms not yet showing up - for all these reasons they have neither been able to track or control the spread, nor make predictions about where it might appear.
That says to me that the virus is already here, where we live and work and send our children to school.
I'm assuming that everyone I know has been exposed, and is contagious, and will start showing symptoms one to eight weeks from now. If they're lucky they'll have mild symptoms, or none.
If they're unlucky - and some groups (seniors, people with weaker immune systems) are in more danger than others - they might come down with severe symptoms, bad enough to send them to the ICU, or, God forbid, worse. As of this writing the virus has infected 90,000 people, and killed 3,000.
So I'm assuming it's among us.
As far as local dances - this is not a hard decision. We are not spending the evening holding hands, inhaling 100 infected dancers' exhalations, dodging stray beads of sweat flying into a face, microscopic droplets of saliva spun onto a lip or cheek, negotiating infected door handles, counters, bathrooms, food, shoes, every surface ... It doesn't make sense to us, given the extreme and uncontrolled danger of this crisis, to deliberately put ourselves in the path of what appears to be a ferocious, ruthless, powerful, lethal enemy, that is trying to take us down.
I'm not trying to scare anyone - but - I am saying this as clearly as I can. I've found that people have a hard time respecting microscopic viruses the same way they respect sharks, tigers, or hurricanes.
My opinion on dance events? This is a no-brainer. There is no way I would hold an event now, if I were an event director. I wouldn't have to think for one nanosecond to make that decision.
Simply no way - if I care about other people which I hope that I do - that I would bring anyone into an environment where they will almost for certain become infected with a highly contagious virus that may kill them; and then send them home to their families, their coworkers, and everyone else they come in contact with, where it will kill more.
I would not want to be the one - when they try to trace the path of contagion - I would not want to be the person that has to answer, "Wait - you did what? You brought in 500 people from around the world, you put them in a closed ballroom, in a hotel, for four days and nights, where they held hands, and breathed into each others faces, and changed partners over and over? And then you sent them out into their communities? You did this when you knew that 3,0000 people had already died of it? Why did you do that? What were you thinking?" I would not want to be the person answering those questions, not to the scientists trying to stop the spread, and more importantly, not to myself.
This is a no-brainer for me. I would certainly not hold a dance event. Not now.
Easy for me to say. I'm not the one who's laid out money for the hotel and everything else.
But I would like to think that if it were me, I would do the right thing.
I want to say, again, these are just my opinions, mine alone. I'm not an expert. I'm just following news of the outbreak like everybody else, taking it one day at a time, and trying to keep calm and take care of the people I love.
Good luck everyone. To all our beloved dancers, and our beautiful, beloved west coast swing community - take care and good luck to you and your families. I hope this monstrosity passes quickly and we're all fine and dancing again soon.
Love Liza
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-age-sex-demographics/
https://www.cdc.gov/media/index.html
https://www.elsevier.com/connect/coronavirus-information-center
https://www.cell.com/2019-nCOV
http://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/cbn/2020/cbnreport-02272020.html