Wash your hands, but also…

H ere are recommendations for actions that we, in addition to our elevated hygiene practices, can start taking today that will help us all get through this challenging situation more smoothly.

The “Wuhan Shake” is a new way of greeting people that reduces people touching each other’s hand which is a critical step in controlling the spread of coronavirus. Plus, new ways of greeting each other are fun!

(Get to) Know your neighbors.

Build trust. You and them will be working together in the next few months. You might consider saying the phrase “ I care deeply about remaining healthy and helping you and your family and the rest of our community stay healthy. I’ve been feeling worried about the coronavirus. I’m curious what you and your family are doing to stay safe? What do you think we can do together to make our neighborhood safer?”

Make risk-mitigation fashionable.

Carrying hand sanitizer on one’s person is cool. The unique way that one carries hand sanitizer is a fashion statement. What is the most creative and fun way you and your friends can open doors without using your hands? If you choose to wear a face mask (which you shouldn’t do unless you know you are in a high-risk situation), draw a beautiful art piece on it in sharpie before leaving the house.

Instead of offering gum to friends, offer screen disinfectant!

Practice not panicking.

Barbells. Cold Showers. Saunas. These are tools that people use to help them experience intense situations and practice controlling their fear response.

Meditate on uncomfortable things.

Reduce the chance that you will need to go to a hospital for any reason.

Fix that loose step on your porch that has been a tripping hazard for the last 5 weeks — Slip&Fall’s are one of the more common causes for hospital visits. Don’t drink and drive — not even one drink. Get to bed on time — sleep deprivation is one of the most important predictors of injury. Clean your moldy shower that could be giving you allergic fungal sinusitis.

Communicate Clearly.

Misunderstandings cause problems. Say what you mean and work hard to ensure the people you are communicating with correctly interpret your communications.

Think about what trade-offs you are willing to make in order to reduce your risk for infection.

I love dancing. I often go to Ecstatic Dance, a large group dance environment on Wednesday nights. This has been such an important part of my life over the last 3 years. Last week I was comfortable accepting the risk that I was exposing myself to. In the near future I will decide to not attend this large group gathering in order to make it less likely that I get infected. Social distancing is an important way to reduce the spread of an infection but separating ourselves from others will be difficult on us social mammals especially this extrovert. This will be a hard decision for me, but I will have thought about it a lot before I am forced to make it.

Acquire high-quality tools.

A thermometer. A tuned-up car. A new phone that will make sending and receiving information easy. New phones can also be sanitized better than old phones. Do you have a pantry full of nutrition food that will keep in case of an extended quarantine? Which hand lotion works the best for you when your hands get a little dry from washing them so often?

Understand your situation.

How much money do you have in the bank? How much hand sanitizer do you have? What is the number to call if the heat goes off in your building? What will your health-insurance pay for?

Make plans.

How would you get to a hospital if you needed to? What food would you eat if you were quarantined to your house? What books would you like to read if you were quarantined to your house? Who will you call if you suspect that you might be infected?

Clean up.

Clean surfaces and tidy apartments are more conducive to health for many reasons.

Start broad conversations about risk mitigation in the communities that you spend lots of time in.

Work is the most important one of these. Does your company currently have open and honest and inclusive conversations about this viral epidemic? What are the work-from-home policies and norms like? Do you believe that if someone knew they were sick that they’d stay home? What would it be like to say to one of your co-workers, “Right now, I don’t trust that you would stay home if you were sick?”

Advocate for societal risk mitigation strategies that seem appropriate to you — even if discussing them makes others uncomfortable.

Society might benefit from opt-in routine monitoring of individuals’ blood. If doctors were to know which people contained the virus very soon after they acquire it (while they are still asymptomatic) we could give those individuals the healthcare they need to recover and quarantine them so the virus doesn’t spread. The technology to perform this monitoring exists and might be cost-effective, but implementing this opt-in routine monitoring would probably mean that many people would be uncomfortable with the idea of the healthcare “system” knowing about their current viral status. This topic should be discussed widely.

The fact that San Francisco has a large homeless population is a risk factor for society-wide infection. One effective risk-mitigation strategy would be giving these people homes. This public policy of giving homeless people homes has been used to positive effect in other places and there are many empty apartments that could be used for this purpose very quickly. I recognize how this large and quick increase in welfare spending would make people, especially politically conservative people, uncomfortable, but the discussion of potentially effective risk mitigation strategies should be broad.

Be a good leader.

Garner respect. Give clear instructions. Be transparent about your decision making.

Be a good follower.

Identify authorities, like the CDC, that deserve your trust and allegiance. Listen closely for their instructions. Offer them support when they need it.

Get cough drops. Get Claritin.

If you tend to cough or sneeze because of allergies, you will probably cause some onlooker to worry that you are infected with the virus. This will be distressing to them. You can help that on-looker not be afraid by reducing the number of symptoms you experience that could potentially look like the symptoms of the virus.

Prepare to take care of those close to you who get sick.

Is your life stable enough (time, money, social network to help with emergencies) to help out parents, aunts and uncles who might get really sick? Are you prepared to help take care of kids in your extended family? Do you have supplies to contain biohazard material and protect yourself? What psychological challenges will you face in taking care of loved ones?

Encourage calm, fact-based discussion about our situation.

Astrology and other psudo-science-based recommendations will not only be wrong, they will be dangerous. They should not play a role in what we as individuals, or we as a society, decide to do.

The Centers For Disease Control (CDC) has excellent information that answers questions to the best of anyone’s knowledge. We know a lot about the situation but there are some facts that we don’t currently know and there are some facts that are unknowable. Let’s avoid the human tendency to fabricate answers to questions that we would like to have answers to.

Be the person you’d like to tell your grandchildren about being.

The future course of this pandemic is not clear. Millions of people might die or only 50,000 people might die of COVID-19. Either way, everyone’s day to day lives will be affected. What can you do now that you’ll be proud to look back on later? How can you help the panicked people experience more calm? How can you use your skills and resources and curiosities to be part of the solution? What good joke can you tell to add a little levity to a challenging situation?

Challenging situations are not necessarily bad. Challenging can be good. Lets show up 100% and face this challenge head on.

March 2020

Oakland, California