1. Our household has quite diligently kept to ourselves for about 11 days now.

As restrictions on activity broaden and tighten, I thought I’d visualize our thinking on choosing and adhering to this course of action.

This is my family.

2. Two weeks ago, we were invited to dinner with another family. Small group. Nobody had travelled. Nobody symptomatic.

We declined.

3. Why?

Because the long period of potential asymptomatic transmission means we would effectively have also been bringing together the school, play, and extracurricular contacts of four children.

4. We would have also been bringing together recent work contacts, contacts with friends and family, and even incidental contacts at a store, on an elevator, or in some other shared space.

5. And really, we would effectively be bringing together the contacts of those contacts. Starting with a small gathering, it only takes a couple degrees of separation to wind up with a potential chain of transmission from anywhere in a very large group.

6. This is the same reason we have said no to play dates for the time being. The contacts of those friends. And the contacts of those contacts. And the chains of contacts that we would be linking from ourselves to the other families.

7. It is the same reason we are staying away from playground equipment while on walks with the kids.

8. And it is the same reason that, for the first time in my life, I will not have a Passover seder in-person with members of my family outside my immediate household. Too many people, with too many different chains of contacts. Especially with family elders at the table.

9. To my mind, there is no such thing as a small gathering, because you, and those you are meeting with, are also bringing everybody that you have collectively been in touch with into that room.

10. The virus doesn’t materialize out of thin air; it requires a chain of transmission.

Keeping to yourself breaks that chain. From others to you. From you to others.

If we do this well, and do it together, we’ll be done with it sooner.

11. (and don’t get me started on this @ONThealth tweet, which I was still seeing promoted as recently as a day ago)

https://twitter.com/onthealth/status/1239965196472311808?s=21