keep your distance

Across the country, Canadians are social distancing. Some people call it “physical distancing.” What does that mean?

It means they’re staying home. When they do go out, they’re staying two metres away from other people. It may not be fun, but it will slow the spread of this nasty new coronavirus.

Imagine you’re standing in the middle of a big personal space bubble that stretches two metres in every direction. The only people allowed inside your bubble are the people you live with. If you can keep the virus out of your bubble, it can’t infect you.

The virus spreads from person to person. So the fewer people we see, the fewer chances we give the virus to jump to another person.

There are signs that social distancing is starting to work. When B.C. introduced the first measures March 12, the daily increase in new cases was 24 percent. Now it’s just 12 percent.

So stay in your bubble. This unexpected vacation may not be as much fun as it sounded. But it’s way more fun than you or someone you love getting sick.

It’s not the world’s deadliest virus. It’s not the most contagious. So why is the new coronavirus such a big problem?

COVID-19 is brand-new. When the virus first hit China in December, no one in the world was immune to it. Now we’re all catching it at once. And with no vaccine and no way to treat it, it’s racing through the population.

The first case in Canada was detected January 25. By March 31, we had more than 8500 verified cases.

It’s circulating invisibly in many parts of Canada. Fifteen percent of identified cases get so sick that they end up in intensive care. Five percent need a ventilator to help them breathe. One percent will die.

But here’s the problem. The average person infects two or three others. Once they’re infected, they can spread the virus for days before they get sick.

And it gets worse. Eighty percent of identified cases have minor symptoms or none at all. Untold other Canadians mistake the virus for a cold or the flu or never get sick at all. None of these people realize they’re infecting others.