Our first Monday with social distancing is drawing to an end. Nothing really new. The office is cleaner, so we had to adjust to everyone working in the same room, or stepping out for overlapping meetings. I guess that's new.

Yesterday I read an article from New Zealand discussing their COVID-19 efforts. I've read many articles, but this one stood out because of an interesting graphic they used to demonstrate why social distancing helps.

In the simple image, it shows what happens if a person infects just a few other people. And then the change of the impact if some of those people were instead to have been practicing social distancing or self-quarantine. Of course, we all run the risk of infecting more than a few people, as we probably each run into or walk past dozens in a normal day. It also doesn't work on the graph of people that we all mutually know or may pass in our day. If we're contagious, any number of them could be impacted. If we keep in the social circles, we have many opportunities to become infected.

As I've discussed in other posts, here and elsewhere, this social distancing isn't going to cure or avoid the COVID-19 threat. It's simply to remove ourselves from the risk and cycles of infection. If we're able to do this long enough, advances can be made in identifying, managing, treating, or even curing the disease. It's because of its evident ease of spreading, through its yet unknown myriad mechanisms, that we need to do this. This might be for a long time yet.

I like the graphic, and its impact is very apparent, with just a few contacts. Another good set of simulations can be found here.

Monday ends. I'm about to try to wrangle the kids into bedtime routines.

Everyone's healthy in our home. Hopefully yours, too.