
Ask HN: How can I help the Coronavirus situation? - daenz
Beyond simply slowing the spread by practicing good hygiene and avoiding exposure.
======
DoreenMichele
I was just at a pharmacy where I asked the cashier to use hand sanitizer
because she kept touching her damn nose every minute or two and she blew me
off and told me "I've been using hand sanitizer all day."

If you could smack a few million people upside the back of the head and get
them to actually, in fact, practice the hygiene stuff that gets repeated all
the time and utterly ignored, you could save thousands of lives.

Stop touching your face.

Stop touching your face.

Train cashiers to practice actual germ control.

Don't let them lick their fingers to open bags. Fire them if they do stuff
like touch their nose and then immediately handle money or lick their fingers
to open bags.

The single biggest obstacle to germ control is the fact that most humans don't
want to actually practice it. Making it a widespread habit would nearly put a
stop to most epidemics all on its own, but we are too busy sticking our heads
up our butts to do that.

~~~
im3w1l
> Don't let them lick their fingers to open bags.

How else would you do it? I stopped myself when I was just about lick my
fingers to open a plastic bag for fruit the other day, realizing maybe it's
not good to do in these times, but I couldn't figure out an alternative and
gave in.

~~~
DoreenMichele
I persist and wrestle with it. You eventually get better at it and figure out
how bags actually work.

They actually have tabs built in designed to help you open them. If a bag is
particularly stubborn, move on to a new bag.

Some cashiers have damp sponges or similar to help them open bags without
licking their fingers because they aren't heathens. They are the rare
exception.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
You work at it hard. Like, _really_ hard. Hard enough that you start to sweat.
Then you've got moisture on your hands...

;-)

~~~
DoreenMichele
Non-germy moisture. The only acceptable kind.

------
nickthemagicman
Accept that there's a significant chance you're going to get coronavirus.

Educate yourself and be realistic.

Realize that 80% of patients have mild symptoms, only 20% have serious
symptoms, and of that 20% only 2% fatalities occur.

Also, accept that nothing in life is guaranteed, appreciate the time with the
people you love and care about, and be grateful this pandemic isn't some more
virulent version of something more lethal like yersinia pestis.

That's about all you can do.

~~~
enchiridion
Minor correction, you make it sound like 2% of 20% which is a .4% fatality
rate. The total fatality rate is 2%

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Is it? If I understand correctly, it's 2% of the cases we know about. How many
of the patients with mild symptoms do we know about? (But if we don't know
about them, how do we know that 80% of the people only have mild symptoms? We
guess... or so I suspect.)

~~~
enchiridion
People keep bringing up edge cases like this. If we look at strictly
died/(recovered+died) the mortality is 6%. Obviously it's lower because there
are recoveries which are not recorded.

I'd tend to believe that the statisticians putting out the 2% figure
understand enough about disease dynamics for it to be accurate.

------
jacquesm
By keeping an eye on vulnerable people around you and ensuring they have
access to life's necessities without risk penalty.

------
lm28469
The only thing I'm personally vaguely concerned about is making sure my
grandparents have access to basic necessities without having to expose
themselves in places like supermarkets.

If you're under 40 and healthy it seems that you don't have much to worry
about besides not spreading the virus yourself (self quarantine as soon as you
think you might have it).

~~~
biolurker1
Parents too

~~~
lm28469
Yes of course. In my case I feel like my grandparents wouldn't feel very
concerned if no one was pressuring them and telling them it could potentially
be very serious.

------
dekobon
I encourage you to write your local politicians to encourage policy changes
that would encourage people to self-quarantine or to seek treatment for
infectious diseases. I wrote the following to my state senators:

Many people currently are concerned about the corona virus outbreak. I believe
that Washington state can take the lead in medical policy decisions that would
help to mitigate the effect of the disease on the most vulnerable members of
our state.

There are two key legislative gaps that prevent people from seeking proper
care for infectious diseases:

1\. A lack of legislation protecting peoples’ jobs when taking leave for
treatment or diagnosis for an infectious disease.

2\. The high potential cost of medical care when seeking treatment or
diagnosis for an infectious disease. Although many people have health care in
Washington state, many have high deductibles that are so high that they may
choose paying their rent over treatment.

I am not a medical professional nor a medical policy expert, but an ordinary
citizen of your district and these gaps are frightening. Please help
Washington be a national leader in infectious disease policy.

~~~
bjourne
> I encourage you to write your local politicians to encourage policy changes
> that would encourage people to self-quarantine or to seek treatment for
> infectious diseases.

Isn't that easier said than done if you have no paid sick leave?

------
digikata
I had this question of software engineers with maybe access to social data.
But I think I posted it at a poor time - no replies.

Ask HN: Usefulness of social network data for epidemic management?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22440114](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22440114)

But really it seems like a natural reaction to want to help, but I suspect if
you aren't already tied in to a network of people/resources with a jump on the
issues already, that coming up to speed is more of a idle thought than
practical.

------
max_
You could build insurace infrastructure for people at a high risk of the
disease.

[https://asindu.drileba.capital/2020/02/fighting-of-
disease-p...](https://asindu.drileba.capital/2020/02/fighting-of-disease-
pandemics-with-defi/)

------
html5web
I've just purchased the domain name coronavirus.rehab Planning to compile
useful content and share it with public

------
throwaway88483
Wash your hands.

------
codegladiator
Question, should I go to office tomorrow? First case just reported a few hours
ago.

------
kyawzazaw
You can donate your computational resources to Stanford.

------
sjg007
Wash your hands.

------
jeffrallen
Wash your hands.

------
throwaway230047
Write an app!

On the first screen it poses the question, "Should I buy a bunch of N95
masks?"

On the second screen, it says, "Fuck, no."

