How Long Must This Go On?

It's not you. It's the virus. You're great. You're doing the best that you can. Your efforts are helping (if you're staying the fuck home). But this virus is rude and we got started on this way too late, and that's why things won't get better in two weeks.

Here's what I can tell you about our best guesses for the future, big picture.

It's going to get bad. (It already is bad in parts of the country) That's why we have to stay home for the near future. It might not feel like it where you are (and that's great!). You might not know anyone who is infected (again, super great things we are thankful for!). But on the healthcare side, hotspots are starting to run low on things. And places that aren't hotspots today will also soon be overwhelmed, too. There are a lot of things that our hospitals don't have enough of, or will soon run out of, like "PPE" (personal protective equipment") for their staff. We need more ventilators. And we need more hospital beds (not the physical beds, but the capacity for hospitals to handle more people). A big bill that just passed on Wednesday will help ramp up the production of supplies, but things won't be fixed immediately. And the bill can't solve everything. 

[Action item: Call your elected representatives. Get them to pass relief bills that help more than the big businesses-- get them to help you, help vulnerable populations, help the healthcare workers on the front lines, and all the small businesses and workers affected. Hold them accountable.]

The pandemic may take 12-18 months to fight. The best guess right now is that this pandemic will be a 12-18 months problem. But this is a new disease. We are just starting our fight. So there are so many moving pieces and there's a chance if we do this well, it won't take this long. It's hard to say. We do know that, historically, pandemics don't last forever. They wreak havoc for a couple of seasons then taper off. So that's something to hold onto!? 

Surely we can't stay inside for 12-18 months. As the days pass, you may hear increasing rumbling, among experts, cable news talking heads, and the many voices inside your head, about the wisdom of school closures and staying at home. They will debate when we can abandon this staying at home business. There are many debatable points! The government does not have a good track record on handling this. And as we are all experiencing, there are some terrible effects of staying at home. Staying at home hurts a lot of people. And this is definitely not sustainable in the longterm. Policymakers recognize that. But we need to stay home now to buy our hospitals time. And to buy policymakers and public health leaders time. They need more data and evidence, from the US and the experience of other countries, to make decisions about when we can change out of our sweatpants. We are only about a week into this. It's only to take one to two months until we can get a good picture. We're going to be looking a lot at China, South Korea, and Italy to see how we emerge from our homes and what a new normal will be. 

[Action item: Pick up the phone and check on someone. Bake brownies and leave me the corner pieces. Pat yourselves on the back for reading this far and getting past hump day. It's OK to question authority and grumble, as long as you do both while staying at home.]