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March 15,2020 | 112 0

A virus has literally taken over the world – entire countries / cities are on lock down! There’s a sentence I never thought I’d say. At the moment that I am writing this, there are over 120,000 people infected and over 5000 people dead. Schools, restaurants, gyms are closed and events are cancelled. It makes me feel like I’m in a movie – one of these “end of the world” movies. An event that I thought I would never experience in my lifetime, even as a doctor.

Many people think that governments are over reacting. This is not the case, all these restrictions are necessary to prevent spread. Social distancing is vital to reduce the number of new cases per day. If you look at this model based on what happened in Wuhan, China, waiting one more day with implementing measures to promote social distancing creates 40% more cases. This could cause a collapse of any health care system. Its an exponential threat, we need to realize that.

These measures are also important to “flatten the curve” – to ease the situation for the health care industry. It is much easier to treat 500 new patients over two weeks than 500 in a day, this is why these restrictions are in place.

Theoretically, this situation has to subside in a month or two as quarantine / lockdown measures prevents the virus from spreading and maybe we will have a vaccine soon! For now, all we can do is listen to the recommendations from our government, practise good hygiene, and wait out this crazy time.

2020 has be a rough year thus far

And its only just been 2.5 months, its insane. Wildfires in Australia at the start of the year killing over 1 billion animals… now this.

What about travelling?

Honza and I were ment to go on holiday to Israel tomorrow! We had to cancel it around 10 days ago when Israel announced that they would put everyone arriving into automatic quarantine. Our plans were fowled, and it was disappointting but hopefully we will replan it when the situation settles down.

There are many cheap flights currently available to a limited amount of countries / cities which currently have travel restrictions. Airlines are at a risk of bankrupcy so they have to make a living somehow!

I’ve read that a lot of people are making uses of these cheap tickets travel, and then finding ways to escape quarantine. Now, I’m usually all about making the most of all travel opportunities, and if this was a different situation, I would be all over these bargain deals. But honestly, in this situation, I’d recommend being a bit wary.

Know the recommendations and regulations in your country. Will you be in quarantine once you return? Whats the situation the country that you want to travel to? Will you be put on quarantine there when you arrive?

Remember, yes, you are young, you are probably got going to have a severe case of Covid 19, however, the mean age of people who ended up having bilateral intestial pneumonia and needed ICU care was around 45! So, think about the people around you. If you travel and return and visit your parents, you may pass it on to them. This is a time to think about the community, and reducing the effect this virus has had on our respective countries.

Escaping quarantine

I’ve read about cases of people trying to find a loop hole around compulsory quarantine. If rules about quarantine come into play at midnight tonight, they return at 8PM and go about their lives as normal. Those 4 hours make no difference, please try to take more responsibility and accountability in your actions.

So what now?

Honza and I plan to spend this time reading more, working on our relationship, planning our wedding… and taking some much needed US time. We will also keep an eye out for some good flights to travel in 2-3 months. Why not? The situation hopefully will be better then, if not, a lot of airlines have relaxed their rules about flight change fees etc, so we can always cancel it.

So, all you travellers out there, heres to hoping for a travel filled second half of 2020!