COVID-19: Places to Avoid
Two days ago I noticed a staff at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport wore a face mask. Last week I also noticed an elderly woman at a mall in the DFW Metroplex wore a face mask. The Center for Disease Control does not recommend the general public wear face masks if they are not at risk of exposure but aggregating in crowded environment especially where there is community spread (unknown contact with a known infected person) of COVID-19 increases your risk of acquiring the virus. Across China especially in the city of Wuhan in Hubei province where the coronavirus originated we saw how the Chinese government locked down the city to avoid people aggregating or traveling and further spreading the virus. Japan has closed schools for one month and we have seen some schools closing in the State of Washington where the most US deaths have occurred. Many of the early US cases were passengers from a cruise ship off the coast of Japan. The Tokyo marathon last week was run by just 200 elite athletes down from a projected 38000 with no spectators on vacated streets in one of the largest and most populated cities in the world. The US and other countries have banned or restricted flights coming from countries or regions with high infection rates like China, South Korea, Iran and Italy. Facebook has reported one of its contractors in Seattle tested positive and other tech giants like Google and Amazon are advising some workers to work from home.
Therefore, since the risk to the average American is still low it is important to not panic and to follow the advice of public health and emergency managers in your area. However, avoiding scenarios like those cited above in high risk areas is prudent.
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