Stay the F*ck Home

I’m not a doctor or a medical professional. I highly encourage you to get all your Covid-19 information only from valid sources such as the CDC, WHO, and your local public health department (I follow this page for San Francisco, which updates daily at 10 am PST). There is no medical advice in this post – only my cold hard personal opinion.

And my personal opinion is that we all need to stay the fuck home.

Covid-19 content is everywhere and this will be my only and final word on the topic I hope. B&B is meant to be a place of escape, a source of inspiration and happiness – but we also do not ignore real world events. We do not pretend they aren’t happening.

And we don’t minimize national and international emergencies.

So here’s where B&B – where I as a fellow human – stand on all this.

Most of what we read about Covid-19 online is sensationalized – but the threat is real and we should take it seriously.

Prepare, don’t panic.

If I hear one more person claim this is “just the flu” I’m going to stab my eyeballs out with a fork. It’s not the fucking flu.

That being said – wow is there a ton of sensationalization and trash in the media right now. “Covid-19” has been mentioned online more than two billion times. That’s a lot of information – most of it not from official sources you should actually trust (the CDC and WHO).

Tune into the professionals – tune out the rest. Doing so has really helped me manage my own anxiety.

But that doesn’t mean this threat isn’t an actual threat. This virus is real, it is coming, and to be frank it’s probably already in your neighborhood because we’re learning more and more spreaders could be asymptomatic. You could be a carrier and not know it yet – and still heading into work, a restaurant, etc because you don’t feel sick. For example, a volunteer at a San Jose event was asymptomatic on March 7 and tested positive shortly after – they likely unknowingly spread it to everyone at said event because they weren’t feeling sick and left the house.

I’m not a medical professional and the CDC and WHO haven’t released a ton of information on asymptomatic spread at this point – but my question to you is:

Is it worth it?

Just because you’re young and will survive – your *insert social activity here* isn’t worth risking the lives of those who may not survive.

I am a 28 year old female in relatively good health. I have low/normal blood pressure. I probably eat too much bread. But overall – I’m healthy. If I catch Covid-19 (to be honest, I’m telling myself “when“) – I have a great chance of walking out the other side unscathed.

Let’s say I go out to a bar, workout class, or any other non-essential activity. Please note NON-essential. Yes – if I catch Covid-19, I may do okay. I don’t live with any elderly people.

But what if I am asymptomatic and unknowingly spread it to a friend who then takes it home to their live-in grandparent?

We – the young and healthy – will survive. But are you really even wanting to risk a 1% chance you could spread it to someone older who may not survive? Covid-19 has been known to pass as many as 4 people down from you – meaning even if you don’t have 1:1 contact with the elderly, you could still be the one to infect them.

Also – THE ELDERLY ARE PEOPLE. THEY HAVE LIVES WORTH PROTECTING. Just because you’ll survive, if someone else may not, that’s still a human life young or old. Stop being selfish and stay the fuck home.

The absolute truth here: we really just don’t know enough about this new virus to know accurately how it spreads. My point is – is it worth the risk? Is putting your social life on hold for a few weeks worth the risk of even one person maybe potentially getting sick?

My husband and I will be sheltering in place for the foreseeable future. We will leave the house to get essentials at the grocery store – this is an essential activity not a non-essential activity. We may potentially leave to go on walks in our local park – Golden Gate Park is massive and maintaining 6+ feet of distance between people is incredibly easy. Otherwise we’ll be cozied up with our cat making the best of a super shit situation.

And doing what we can to protect others and prevent our local hospitals from becoming overwhelmed.

I write from a place of priviledge.

And wow do I know it.

My husband and I are both incredibly fortunate to be able to work remotely. We can do our part to minimize the risk for others who do not have this luxury.

I want to ensure I always acknowledge my privilege and say thank you to those taking risks every single day – from our brave and inspirational healthcare workers to small local businesses to those stocking the shelves at grocery stores. I see you. We all see you. I’m thankful for you.

This post isn’t for all these people – “the helpers.” The ones who need to leave the house every day. But I’m asking the rest of you – your workout class, brewery visit, etc are not needs. This is our time, our time to give back and do what we can to help those that have to report in to their essential activities that require them to leave the house and increase their risk.

Don’t be selfish. Stay the fuck home.

If we do this right – we will all think we overreacted. That’s a sign we succeeded.

This is the weird thing about public health – if we do everything right to stop the spread, we’ll look back at this time right now of quarantine and think we overreacted. Because if we do this right – the numbers of those infected and dead won’t ever spike. All this will look like one giant overreaction.

And that will have meant we won.

So let’s win – together.

As always – I love you guys.

B&B readers – I love you endlessly and want nothing more than for you and your families to live rich, healthy lives. Stay safe. And check back for your regularly scheduled programming of Nespresso lattes, Daily Stoic, and Capsule Wardrobe basics.

xoxo and plenty of bagels,

Kelsey