Have you been to a Doctor's office, supermarket, restaurant? What is the difference?
Put on your mask, social distance and don't stick your fingers in your eyes, nose or mouth. Bring a little hand sanitizer bottle for insurance.
I’ve not been to any of those since March, and, if I’m being honest, I struggle to see why many others have (doc office aside). It’s like one large game of organ Russian Roulette played by people who don’t understand statistics.
For context, that B1G study suggested a 15% chance of developing material long term heart damage for those who were young and largely asymptomatic. Chinese studies have suggested materially higher likelihood’s if long term damage to other organs, most notably lungs. There are 6 in a classic revolver (I’m not a gun expert, so I’m sure there are better, less dumb-sounding descriptions, but stick with me). Assuming one of those chambers is loaded, you have a 1/6 = 16.67% chance of getting unlucky. Again for context, based on at least some reputable available research, you have a 15% chance of materially damaging your heart with COVID. 16.67% and 15% are uncomfortably close. Add in the other effects, and the likelihood of long term damage only grows. Plus there are the other, more discussed effects like potentially infecting your neighbors, potentially (~0.74%) killing yourself/spouse/parents/grandma/friends, potentially sending you/them to the hospital, and so on. Fortunately or unfortunately, this virus will continue infecting people until the sooner of (A) here immunity is reached (possibly as high as 70% of the global population in a short amount of time - +/- travel restrictions, global track and trace measures, and length of immunity after getting the virus), (B) there is a vaccine *that people will take*, or (C) we collectively realize that we don’t *have* to treat ourselves to bacon-wrapped baja jalapeño poppers from Chili’s every 2 weeks.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m normally down to think outside the bun, have it my way, and eat some finger licking good food to put a smile on my face and make the world a better place, but semi-arbitrary 6’ distance, face masks, etc. are rules of thumb concocted by the CDC to minimize damage, not eliminate threats. They’re also rules of thumb, so they don’t actually apply to all situations. For instance, exposure from 6’ away for 3 minutes is far different than exposure for 3 hours, which is far different than exposure for a 9-10 hour work day.
WMT curbside and an ability to go 6+ months without eating out work wonders.
*Apologies for any typos. I’m using an iPhone. Not only are the buttons comically small, but the programming was apparently done very quickly by a skeleton staff of interns who are very clearly not the best and brightest in their field. If you know anyone who works for AAPL, please ask them to be less terrible at their job for me.
**Also, I wrote those statistics from memory, so apologies if any of them are slightly off. The directional argument is what really matters, not the exact nuances.
***I know I only cited a handful of studies, which is far from ideal, but the disease is new, so there isn’t a mountain of work yet. To quote a former secretary of defense, “you go to war with the army that you have, not the army you want.”