The Real Impact of Ignoring Social Distancing
With a very contagious virus like COVID-19, which is stretching the capacity of our health care system, damaging our economy, and claiming countless lives, everyone’s participation in the Social Distancing plan is crucial!
The potential impact of ignoring social distancing could not have been better demonstrated!
The team ran an analysis using data from Xmode Social to identify how the Spring Break gathering at a single point of the Ft. Lauderdale beach was able to spread the Coronavirus across the USA and beyond.
The data was obtained anonymized from mobile devices that were active at Spring Break. As the map in the video showed, the footprint of that social gatherings was massive and truly put our whole nation at risk.
The major challenge for the prevention plans to work, even today, is that people continuously disregard the safety guidelines, ignoring the importance of social distancing. Many people still defy the risks by visiting crowded areas and events, and the banal traveling continues around the country, unrestrictedly.
What we are learning more by reviewing the prediction models against the currently existing data is that are many people that are infected with COVID-19 disease and are asymptomatic. Those people spread the virus unknowingly and unwillingly by simply speaking or breathing. The danger of such silent spreading is that people have been cautious around other people who have symptoms that resemble the flu, but not much attention to individuals that seem healthy. Once infected, the person ends up taking the disease home and infect the ones they should be trying to protect.
The cycle of infection, instead of narrowing, expands and causes more stress in the already overloaded medical system, affecting the economy and, ultimately, putting many people’s lives in real jeopardy.
Now that you know about it, please don’t allow yourself to be used as an Uber for this virus. Don’t become a silent serial killer. Simply stop everything and stay home. Stay safe and keep everyone else safe. That’s how we will truly get through this.
