⤢ Enlarge Graph

• COVID-19 is an extremely serious threat, similar to Spanish Flu of 1918 which killed approximately 50,000,000 people world-wide.
• Approximately 20% of those infected require hospitalization, 3.5% die. For USA, this means 65,440,000 hospitalizations and 11,452,000 deaths. Hospitals cannot handle this large number of sick people.
• COVID-19 can be stopped or its impact severely reduced if everyone makes a serious effort to decrease social contacts, and to decrease the chance of spread during a contact. Many infected people don't know yet that they are sick and infectious. You could be already infected. It is important to both protect yourself, and to protect others. Several half-effective measures are sufficient to stop or drastically reduce the spread of COVID-19 in a population.
• How to reduce social contacts and chances of transmission:
  • Masks or other cloth facial coverings can provide some protection in public: these will block some of the droplets that an infected person produces - many infected people do not yet realize they are infectious. It is not necessary to block 100% of the droplets; decreasing the chance of transmission by a mere 50% has profound effects if everyone does it. Masks or coverings also keep people from touching their mouths.
  • Frequently wash your hands, use hand sanitizers, wash and disinfect shared areas with disinfecting wipes or sprays.
  • Avoid touching your face with your hands. Use tissues or dedicated object such as a pen or popsicle sticks to scratch your face.
  • Work Meetings: cancel, postpone or increase intervals between meetings, teleconference instead (email, phone, consider products such as GoToMeeting, Zoom, Adobe Connect), reduce number of people at the meeting, spread people apart, choose a location that is large and well-ventilated, encourage masks or facial covering.
  • Public places, trains, airplanes: avoid unnecessary trips, keep away from others, use nose & mouth protection such as a mask or a cloth, consider off-peak hours.
  • Grocery shopping: decrease the frequency of trips, buy more during 1 trip, go during off-peak hours, keep distance from others.
  • Parties and social gatherings: avoid, change venue to outdoors, meet in smaller groups, avoid touching other people, increase distance.
• Map of confirmed infections: Due to the exponential growth of infections, there are likely at least 2.5 times more infected people than those who are sick and have been confirmed.
• Warm weather may not stop this epidemic, considering spread in warm countries such as Singapore and Australia.
• Italian doctor says coronavirus like a bomb that exploded: social distancing and precautions are needed and effective, before coronavirus spirals out of control in your area.

All numbers used in the simulation are estimates. USA counts are extrapolated from the small population simulated here, and may fluctuate or be inaccurate for categories which contain only a few simulated persons. Day 0 assumes infection prevalance that is a small percentage of the entire population (2 simulated persons, equivalent to 109,066 persons in USA). Each simulated person is randomly assigned specific contacts for the entire duration of simulation, without regard to location.