Arna Brown Morgan | Why do we need social distancing?

So why should we stand and sit apart from each other? Why six feet? Three feet? Or why not touch and hug our friends and feel good? After all, we’re all suffering from COVID-19 fatigue!

Alas, studies have shown and very recent social activities have demonstrated how a lack of social distancing leads to the worsening of this pandemic! It is a fact that after our local elections this year and after the ‘Emancipendence’ holidays even earlier, our numbers infected with the COVID-19 virus rose. We lost ‘Toots’ Hibbert, and we lost D.K. Duncan. Icons! We’ve also more recently lost our beloved family doctor, Dr Lennie Jackson, to COVID-19, perhaps influenced by the same problem with social distancing as he saw and interacted with numerous patients in his office! Lennie’s death really hurts. How does Jamaica replace him at this time? Not easily!

Quarantining is cramping the style of many Jamaican men who have intimate lady friends. Bottom line is that a man can’t do his ‘intimacy’ from even three feet away!

Plenty of men are in trouble right now because they can’t explain their absence from some lady’s yard! Digging right down to the basics, this is one BIG reason why some men are shouting down the idea of social distancing, or any COVID-19 protection measures at all! They are just too inconvenient. Might as well let herd immunity prevail! It’s the easiest default way to go for our society! Let hundreds (yes, even thousands) of Jamaicans perish! No, this can’t happen, you say! But why not? Because your mind revolts at the thought? It is a nightmare scenario because it remains a stark possibility!

Over 80 per cent of COVID-19 fatalities occur in people more than 55 years old. This number includes many of our government leaders and heads of commerce and business; leaders of industry, banks, and insurance companies; most of our healthcare workers; and doctors in private practice. If not your mom and dad, then your grandpa and grandma!

If we don’t practise COVID-19 safety and prevention methods, our society could stumble. Businesses could fail in the backlash, and our older relatives will perish! Is this OK? I mean, I’m asking you personally, is this alright with you? Will you sign a petition saying, ‘I don’t care if my mom dies from COVID-19, and I won’t try to protect her’?

DROPLETS BLOWING

Back to social distancing:

When we speak to each other face to face, droplets coming from our mouths will travel about three feet, at least most of the time.

When we are talking and suddenly cough or sneeze, those droplets will usually travel up to six feet if the air is stationary. If you’re in a room with a fan behind you when you cough, droplets will travel even a greater distance towards the person you’re speaking to or someone even further away. When standing behind someone who is coughing, the droplets will be blown towards you! And those droplets will travel further than under a no-breeze situation! An air conditioner is another story altogether. This cooling device collects all particles in the atmosphere and pushes them back out at everyone within the vicinity! But that is a masking story; suffice to say, wearing a mask in that situation will be your best prevention tool to minimise exposure to a dose of COVID-19!

Standing in line outside the bank, waiting at the pharmacy to collect medications (and for some reason, the wait time has increased at several pharmacies), or waiting in the checkout line at the supermarket, social distancing matters! People often give up on keeping a distance in these situations. Keeping six feet apart is ensuring everyone’s safety. You’re still in the same position in the line! Whether you ‘bungle up’ or keep your distance, you will enter the bank, or reach the checkout counter at the same time. It should not change your wait time to access the service, but it just might prevent you becoming infected with coronavirus that day!

This is especially so now that we know that spending 15 minutes near someone with COVID-19 greatly increases your chance of contracting it. And unlike contracting the ‘clap’ (gonorrhoea) in a close one-on-one encounter, all people standing near a COVID-19-infected person are at risk. Depending on whether the person has no symptoms or is coughing and sneezing, one to three persons can become infected from exposure with such a person for 15 minutes. When was the last time you waited just 15 minutes in a bank line or at the pharmacy? Keeping your distance matters! Social distancing makes sense.

A BAD IDEA

Try to remember to practice social distancing whenever possible. Parties are just a bad idea right now when we are experiencing community spread and have been told to treat everyone as if they are COVID-19-infected. Usually, multiple people become infected in what are now being called superspreader events. This is just the harsh reality.

The 1918 pandemic with the Spanish flu came and went. Millions died then, even though there were few aeroplanes traversing the world to mix populations. We live in a global world and need to take responsibility for our actions. We come in contact with people from all over the world and then go home to our families!

Sales for the treatment of sexually transmitted diseases have fallen in many pharmacies in Jamaica as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. This is a good thing. We should not allow the venality that underpins much of society to be one of the big unspoken reasons for the rush to end COVID-19 restrictions to the movement of society.

We are a people who live and love life. Our smiles and graciousness, and even our sexuality, are world renown. But let us look for that kernel of discipline and love for our fellow men, which every Jamaican carries in their heart. Let us live long by practising social distancing so that we can love during many future days and nights.

Dr Arna Brown Morgan is a family physician, regional treasurer of the Caribbean College of Family Physicians, and past associate lecturer in the family medicine programme at The University of the West Indies. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.