š® Peering into the future.
Trying to anticipate what's coming next so we can plan and prepare.
š° The Topic
Week 9. 10? Iāve lost count. In some ways it doesnāt really matter because as hard as the past couple of months have been, itās becoming clear that the next 12-18 months are likely to be much harder.
Shutting everything down wasnāt easy, but it was straightforward. Starting back up again? With different circumstances, risks and leadership across the country, this is an entirely different thing.
Making matters worse, for parents, any talk of āreopening workā is fairly moot unless there are equally assurances of childcare being available. Many daycare centers are struggling to figure out if theyāll still be open and schools are scrambling to figure out what the safest options for September and beyond look like. And thatās on the other side of a whole long summer that stretches in front of us. As working parents weāre all trying to figure out how the heck weāre going to do our jobs if we donāt know how and when our kids will have care.
And even if our preschools, camps or daycares are opening, a lot of us are left wondering: Should I send my kids?
So yeah. Thereās a lot we donāt know. But letās focus on what we do.
It seems likely that the next 18+months is going to be marked by a lot of fluidity - at schools/daycares and at work (eg. maybe schools in for a month, but then have to be home for a couple weeks, or in school for 3 days/week with the other 2 from home - same for work).
If thereās one thing we need to focus on, itās how we build and prepare ourselves, our families and our communities for what is to come.
So letās do that in 3 parts:
What are we using to figure out what restrictions are needed?
What are the next 18+ months going to feel like?
How can we start thinking about what we need to do to get ready?
š§Ŗ Let the numbers guide us.
As weāve covered before, authorities are looking at a couple of key things to determine if an area is ready to leave āphase 1ā and enter āphase 2ā (each region seems to have their own flashy āphasesā slide, with a range of 3 or 4 phases, but they all roughly track to the same things). As a priority, theyāre making sure the following are in place before lifting restrictions:
Testing capacityĀ - the better your area is equipped for testing anyone with symptoms, the more ambitious the āreopeningā plans can be for consideration.
Hospital capacityĀ to safely treat any patients that need hospitalization.
Ability to monitorĀ confirmed cases and anyone they came in contact with.
Sustained reductionĀ in new cases for at least 14 days.
Beyond this, the main metrics that everyone should get as familiar with as the terms āsocial distancingā or āshelter in placeā, is R0 and Rt. R0 is the basic reproductive number or, the number of people that will get the disease from one infected person. Under 1.0, the virus stops spreading, above 1.0 it grows exponentially. Estimates vary but it seems that this coronavirus is somewhere in the 2-3 range.
Rt, on the other hand, is the effective transmission rate at a certain time=t. This reflects the rate that the disease is actually traveling through the population and therefore is probably the main metric for understanding if our shutdown and prevention tactics are working. Because of the drastic and decisive measures of the shutdown, it seems that weāve been able to get the Rt down below 1 in most places. Which means it worked. But as we lift restrictions, the key will be to make sure it doesnāt skyrocket back up because if it does, expect restrictions to come flying back down.
Want to read more about R0 and Rt? Try this, this or this.
š Get ready for a whole lotta toggling back and forth.
Which leads us to the second part: A key thing we need to all start wrapping our heads around is the fact that these lovely phase slides arenāt linear, going from left to right, as it might suggest.
We will very likely be toggling between phases, back and forth, back and forth, for the next 18+ months.
And if this is the case, then we need to start preparing ourselves, mentally, emotionally and structurally for a life of extreme fluidity and constant precaution.
Though itās not relevant in every area, Iāve found it helpful to see a range of how different schools, camps and daycares are preparing:
Summer camps: this is an email that one of our local art schools shared and I thought itās been some of the best Iāve seen so far - makes it feel so much less scary.
š§° Prep for new routines and new support systems
First, we need to gear up and build new habits that include wearing masks daily. I like to think itāll be like socks and underwear - just another thing we add to our daily wearing/washing cycles. I think this will be a category of a lot of imagination and opportunity as we find ones that work well but also express our personalities. But for now, hereās a list of places that you can get masks from.
We're also going to need systems that seamlessly allow us to toggle our lives between these various states (eg. this week we're on our "School's In" schedule, which means setting drop-offs vs. next week it's the "School from Home" schedule and we need to juggle childcare).
Weāre busy building a lot of this software right now - ways to create templates where weeks that Schoolās In, you can figure out drop-offs but weeks that Schoolās Out, you can coordinate care with your Pod. But even without that, every parent can start thinking about what help, schedules and logistics will need to be in place for different scenarios.
Weāll share more next week, with tools that can help everyone do this most efficiently and effectively for their own situations.
Ok. That was a lot. But on this Motherās Day, we wanted to help parents everywhere do what they do best - prepare for whateverās coming at them next, by sharing the wisdom of the village šŖš½.