The Coronavirus has been taking over the news for some time now. However, for me personally it has been somewhat easy to forget about it due to a busy school schedule. Thus, it was fairly shocking to hear that so many of my friends who are traveling to Florida for spring break are expected to self-quarantine for two weeks when they return due to Covid-19. This led me to become quite alarmed over the severity of this disease. Additionally, it led me to research just how much this epidemic, or really, pandemic, has spread. Should these students really self-quarantine, or is the whole situation being overblown?
The CDC has currently issued level 3 travel warnings for China, Iran, Italy, and South Korea. However, it appears we no longer should just be afraid of contracting Covid-19 through international travel. According to an update by the CDC, there are currently 20 cases of covid-19 in the US that are due to person-to-person spread alone! There are additionally 30 travel-related cases and 49 pending cases, for a total of 99. Though these numbers are not terribly large, this virus has clearly infiltrated our country and is quite capable of spreading despite the measures people are putting in place to stop it.
The CDC reports that most of these cases are in Washington State and California, so I would definitely say that people who travel there should self-quarantine. However, Florida, where my friends are visiting, is a little bit more on the line. The CDC labeled Florida as having between 1-5 cases on a map tracking Covid-19. The Florida Department of Health (as of March 5), has reported nine positive cases, with 69 tests pending and 248 people being monitored. All this information leads me to think that the severity of the virus in Florida is in the air at this point. It will be interesting to see how many of the pending tests come back positive. However, in light of the uncertainty, it does seem like a good idea to self-quarantine. This is especially true in light of how flexible professors are being with school work at this point. You could prevent transmission of such a scary disease and get a two-week break at the same time!
Microbes and Musings 