Good Lifestyle

During the past week, I was flooded with friends of friends, families and colleagues on how to navigate the gray area. Should we send our child back to the daycare? Should we send our children to summer camp? Can we see our parents / brothers and sisters / friends this summer? When can we play baseball / hockey / basketball? When will they work well? Should we go back to work in the office? When will it be safe for the grocery store ... in the store ... during regular office hours? Should we travel for holidays this summer and, if so, where is safe? When should we reprogram our check-ups / dog toilets / haircuts / car service? I am so honored that people trust me with these precious details of their lives. I only want to have more definitive answers to these questions or could at least arm people with everything they needed to feel safe. Read on and ensure your health and health of others, do not miss theseWithout signs that you have already had coronavirus.

The reality is, we are in a gray area

Our new reality is gray and it is a very difficult and uncomfortable place to live. Where government officials hierarchize economic panic or political popularity on public health, what are the well-intentioned citizens to do? When government guidelines are available and well-meaning but vague, how can we make choices that are safe for ourselves and our families? Even when curves are flat or sloping slope and that government guidelines are specific, how should we behave from day to day?

The truth is, there is no safe response on how to behave in this gray area, because public health does not work as absolute. Instead, we respond to the data - not only what we know today, but what are the trends we have observed this week, this month, this year and in other places around the world . The data can be our collective guide because we are heading in this uncertain future. Let's try something (like open restaurants for outdoor restaurants or cautious shops with arrows recorded on the floor) with reasonable measure, then look at what happens in terms of new cases on a community level. Only then will we know that we can relax more restrictions or that we need to withdraw.

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Your first intestinal check

But on an individual level, what suits you, right now - you must first look inward. Make an intestinal check. What is your personal level of risk tolerance? In other words, how many risks are you ready to tolerate? We think about these problems throughout our personal finances - how can we weigh potential risks with potential investment returns? If you have fallen ill after this haircut / manicure / shopping, would it have valid? There are those who will not be able to tolerate an amount of risk of becoming infected - their health is too delicate or an excessive anxiety so that the provisional exit is worth the risk. Others will be first browsers in our reopened world, willing to take some measure of the risk of infection just to allow the limits of isolation. Knowing that we could have a window of opportunity this summer, between epidemiological waves, to see our friends and our family can increase all our levels of risk tolerance.

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Your secondary bowel check

The second verification of your personal choices and your behaviors is to ask you, how can I do this safer situation for my health? Practice the harm. We must recognize that the only way to be 100% of Cvid-19 100% infection is to stay at home and isolate. But where it is not feasible, practical or even reflecting local guidelines, you can venture as safe as possible. Wear a fabric facial coating, wash your hands, keep your social distance and disinfect high touch surfaces. Make yourself tested for Covid because it becomes more and more available. In this way, you get not only from your own health, but also the health of your community. Knowledge is power! The more data we have, the more reasonable we can answer.

Beyond WHO and how the place is important. There are microepidemics in this country and knowing your local context is important because you evaluate your level of risk. The rural Vermont is not L.A., Birmingham, Suburban Westchester or Portland. Currently, where you live questions about your experience with this epidemic.

It's not forever

So when we save our new reality with caution, know it's not forever. The vaccines areon the horizon. New treatments bring evidence every day. The tests and tracing of contacts are developing. Hoping that all these scientific progress will go a little light in gray. As for yourself: go through this pandemic at your healthier, do not miss these Without signs that you have already had coronavirus .

JAIMIE MEYER , MD, an infectious disease of Yale Medicine and Assistant Professor of Medicine at the Yale School of Medicine.