Wednesday, March 25, 2020

Vox and FiveThirtyEight explain social distancing

"I'm sure I'll have more on the pandemic tomorrow.  Stay tuned."  That was my closing to Seth Meyers takes closer looks at Trump's response to the pandemic, so I'm following through with it by sharing a sequel to Vox explains how its viewers and readers can fight the coronavirus.  This time, it's the Vox video Social distancing during coronavirus, explained by an expert.

To fight coronavirus, we need to change how we live.
...
“Social distancing,” also called physical distancing, is the best way to slow the spread of coronavirus and save lives in your community. It means leaving home as little as possible, keeping six feet away from others in public, and generally just limiting in-person social contact. But the rules of social distancing can be sort of blurry and confusing. Can you have close friends over for dinner? Can you visit relatives? Can you get on a plane if you’re wearing a face mask? What is life even supposed to look like without social contact?

We spoke with University of Pennsylvania social epidemiologist Carolyn Cannuscio about how we should think about social distancing, and what measures we should each be taking to do our part in slowing down the pandemic. Practicing social distancing properly isn’t easy, she says. But it’s also the best thing that each of us can do right now in the service of public health.
As the caption of the first video from Vox I embedded in the previous post said, "The best way to slow down the spread is for everyone — healthy, sick, young, old — to limit social contact as much as possible, immediately. This is called social distancing, and it only works if enough of us do it. But if we do, it could mean the difference between the life and death of someone you know."  I also wrote in that entry, "To read more of Vox's coverage of the pandemic, click here.  I hope following the advice there helps keep my readers and me safe and healthy through this crisis."

FiveThirtyEight also uploaded a video about social/physical distancing, How Should You Social Distance?

Everyone has a lot of questions about what "social distancing" means. Can I go to work? The gym? A coffee shop? Here's what our Senior Science Writer, Maggie Koerth, is doing after speaking with a number of experts in public health.
I hope my readers found this video helpful, too, both for their own health and for flattening the curve.

I might take a break from the pandemic tomorrow, as I plan on posting a retrospective of the blogging year just ended, which I mentioned in the conclusion of The Washington Post and Full Frontal explain FOIA for Freedom of Information Day.
One of the episodes is "Whistleblowing 101," which I plan on using to update Rand Paul calling for publication of whistleblower's name illustrates how America fails its whistleblowers, the most read entry posted during the current blogging year.  Watch for that on January 26, the first Throwback Thursday of the tenth year of this blog — that is, if I'm not critically ill or dead from coronavirus by then.  I hope not.
So far, I'm fine.  I still plan on using the video I mentioned, but it turns out that Paul has tested positive for the virus.  That's definitely a pandemic angle, so I might use it, too.  Stay tuned.

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    1. Again, your spam is about a different viral pandemic. Deleted.

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