Know all the terms: COVID-19

‘Self quarantine’ is the best thing you can do right now. While you might think that quarantine is only meant for people carrying infectious diseases, in actuality it refers to a state, period, or place of isolation of an individual who is not necessarily sick.

Self quarantine is done with the purpose of flattening the curve. ‘Flattening the curve’, a term coined by the researchers can be understood by a very simple example. Imagine you are shopping at a mall and you need to use the bathroom, where there are a limited number of lavatories. If every person present at the mall decides to go to the bathroom at the same time, then it becomes a huge problem for the mall management personnels to equip customers with enough bathrooms. However, if the same number of people go to the bathroom at different times spread over a long period of time, then there is no scope for any inconveniences.

Similarly, if the same number of people are eventually going to get infected with a pandemic such as COVID-19, but over a longer period of time, then it becomes very easy for healthcare professionals to handle those patients with efficiency. However, if everyone gets sick at the same time, then the number of hospital visits increase drastically and each person does not get as efficient treatment as possible. Therefore, to avoid turning away sick people who really need immediate medical help, people are advised to stay at homes, in other words ‘self quarantine’ to slow the spread of the virus among the city or state’s population. Generally 14 days self quarantine is recommended as Symptoms of COVID–19 appear within two to 14 days after exposure and include fever, cough, runny nose and difficulty breathing.

This brings us to another term known as ‘Social distancing’. While social distancing might sound like completely cutting off physical contact with people, in real it is quite different. Social distancing means conducting a social activity only in small groups, and not in large groups. It is advised that a group contains no more than ten people.

And lastly, ‘Stock up’ is a term we all have been hearing from our family members or friends and it refers to buying food or home supplies in surplus quantities so that you can avoid going in public areas to shop. But, people have totally misunderstood the concept of ‘stock up’ shopping for daily necessities and have left the majority of the population with no or very little amounts of goods to get through this pandemic outbreak. Our advice is to buy goods in limited stock which can last for you for a few weeks. When that stock gets over, you are allowed to step out of your homes to shop for more. Just be alert enough to carry a hand-sanitizer with you at all times and use it before and after the shopping trip. DO NOT touch your mouth, eyes or nose before reaching home and washing your hands with a hand wash. This term has now changed to ‘panic shopping’, which is quite the opposite of ‘stock up’.