Be responsible, stay home to flatten the curve
Montreal has some precious extra time ahead of California and it’s essential to use it, Leehi Yona says.
For the love of everything, please stay at home.
I am a Montrealer currently in a PHD program in Santa Clara County, Calif. Santa Clara County might not be a household name in Montreal — though it is home to Silicon Valley — but it has been in the news lately: we have an outbreak of COVID-19.
When the first cases popped up, I told myself not to worry; after all, I always wash my hands, I open doorknobs with my sleeve. Most importantly, I had a key PHD comprehensive exam meeting coming up on March 12. I couldn’t afford to falter on this important milestone. I didn’t want to let my PHD committee down.
Fast forward to late February, and things became more serious. March 6, Stanford announced that all classes would be moved to a remote format to minimize COVID-19 spread. Undergraduates were encouraged to leave campus, but graduate students were not; in fact, we were encouraged to carry on with our research. I debated having my PHD committee meeting virtually, but I didn’t want to seem weak or hysterical. I held the meeting with a remote option; two of my committee members joined me in person.
Looking back, I regret not being more proactive. Though I was already limiting my time outside of home (going only to the lab), I could have stayed at home, period. I could have held this meeting online. Now, Santa Clara County is dealing with an exponential rise in COVID-19 cases. The worry, as you all likely know, is that we will not be able to “flatten the curve,” that there will be many people requiring care at once, and not enough medical resources to support them all. In an ideal scenario, we would have taken more drastic
I have faith in our ability to rise to the occasion; as a climate scientist, I must believe society can act to avert widespread harm.
and appropriate measures to slow the spread of the virus, and the health-care system would have been able to cope.
I recognize a very familiar scene unfolding in Canada, including in Montreal, in the last few days. It is familiar because it was my reality a week or two ago, but Montreal has some precious extra time ahead of California. It is still possible to “flatten the curve” back home. But it’s essential to act.
In the last week, I have heard stories of Montrealers rushing to Costco and Provigo to buy toilet paper. There wasn’t any left because everyone came at once.
Imagine that same rush, but to our hospitals, and running out of hospital beds and ventilators. We absolutely need to slow this spread, so that we don’t overwhelm our medical system. It is as simple as that.
And our best chance of doing so is by staying home.
I have faith in our ability to rise to the occasion; as a climate scientist, I must believe society can act to avert widespread harm, otherwise I have very little reason to have hope. I am used to scientists’ dire predictions being dismissed by society. And yet, I’ve always told myself that when the public felt how imminent and important climate change was, individuals and governments would act accordingly. But the current COVID-19 pandemic is the most imminent and urgent challenge I have ever seen. We need to respond, and I strongly believe we can, on COVID-19, climate change, and other issues. It is this compassion that makes us human.
Montreal and Quebec should declare shelter-in-place measures, much like the San Francisco Bay Area did Monday (some say this announcement has come too late). Absent this governmental leadership, Montrealers need to take it upon themselves to be responsible citizens and stay at home.
For the love of everyone — our health-care workers, the elderly, our immunocompromised loved ones — stay at home.
Stay at home!