A rant about coronavirus

As an untrained nerd on the internet, I feel I am especially qualified to provide my opinions on the current medical crisis. None of this is meant to be truly informative; I just wanted to ramble. Do your own research if you doubt me, and make your own conclusions.

Social distancing isn't quarantine

Currently, a lot of the USA is trying to encourage people to do what has been deemed "social distancing"; the problem is that nobody really knows what this means. Many seemed to confuse it with quarantine, and began hoarding food (and toilet paper) out of fear that they'd be trapped in their home for a month, or something like that, I think.

Social distancing is basically just trying to get people to have less physical interactions. It's closing schools, having people work from home, and making restaurants do take-out only. It does not mean that you are locked in your house and can't leave. You can still go out to buy food (as long as people haven't bought all of it before you) and other things you need.

We're not all going to die

While death rates have been quoted as being scarily high, you have to remember that only people who already seem really sick (and people who have lots of money) are getting tested. There's going to be a bias towards having the number be higher than it should be. Still, you should follow through with the whole social distancing idea as much as you can, plus wash your hands and stuff like that.

The reason this is a Big Deal even though young people aren't dying, is because everyone's getting sick and we don't know how to treat it. Doctors are working hard to figure out treatments, but so far they've come up empty. So until we can find a cure for this, we're all gonna have to act like hermits, I guess.

Society isn't collapsing

Some people seem to be acting as if society is going to collapse within a week, and I think that's just not true. While a lot of businesses are struggling, society as a whole is surviving just fine. I think the worst that could happen is that people are gonna realize how shitty capitalism is treating us, and we'll end up having a revolution on our hands. I need to get a good pair of protesting shoes, though.

But so far, everything is fine, honestly. We still have food and water and electricity and Internet. I doubt that people getting sick is going to make those go away. This isn't zombie ebola, it's just like the flu but worse; and we don't have a vaccine. Once a proper treatment gets developed I think we'll all be fine again. (unless anti-vaxxers rear their heads again...)