Important Information Regarding Social Distancing and Flattening The Curve

SOCIAL DISTANCING

Social distancing is a public health practice that aims to prevent sick people from coming in close contact with healthy people. This is done to reduce opportunities for disease transmission. It can include large-scale measures like canceling group events or closing public spaces, as well as individual decisions such as avoiding crowds. The goal of social distancing is to slow down the outbreak in order to reduce the chance of infection among high-risk populations, and to reduce the overall burden on the health care systems and workers.  Social distancing is best shown in the 1918 flu example below. Philadelphia did not implement social distancing, and as you can see on the chart there was a significant spike in deaths. St. Louis on the other hand, did implement social distancing, and the closures had a dramatic result in mortality.

 Flattening the Curve

What does that mean?

It means that we are all responsible for slowing down the spread of Coronavirus in our community. Hospitals can only treat a certain number of patients at a time, and slowing the spread of transmission will help alleviate the burden of overcrowding on hospitals. This is done by cancelling events, school, and even by requesting people work from home. If you look at the image below, you can see two distinct bell curves. These represent two very different scenarios of what could potentially happen.

The tall, skinny curve on the left is potentially a very dangerous scenario. This scenario occurs when many people get sick all at once, in a very short period of time. This happens when we do not take enough steps to prevent the virus from spreading from person to person. This would result in overwhelming the health care system, and not have enough medical staff or supplies to treat everyone in need.

The short curve on the right is the better scenario. This scenario is a "flattened curve," or slowed down infection rate. This scenario leaves the health care system in a much better placed to treat people and save lives. It is very important that we all play out part in flattening the curve.