This website was made as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, but much of the advice may be applicable in other situations. Much of what's discussed here may be common sense to some, but we felt it's still good to have some checklists and advice for various stages of illness in one place. While we consulted with nurses and doctors on much of this advice, most of this text was written by the non-medically trained, trying to puzzle together what makes sense in this new situation.
To be clear: LISTEN TO LOCAL HEALTH AUTHORITIES, DOCTORS AND NURSES when given the choice between that and something you found on the internet.
As we started writing for this site in Berlin, Germany in the second week of March 2020, much about the virus was still unclear, but numbers of infected and dead were rising steadily, most recently in Italy. While it is not now - nor is it ever - a good time to panic, we do think it is now time to think and prepare.
This guide is based on the assumption that in the coming months, more people than usual will either become ill or have ill people in their lives. Let's all hope for the best, but we're going to assume that doctors and hospitals are going to be very busy if not overloaded. We have to confront the possibility that some of the people who would normally be cared for under medical supervision might need to be cared for at home. We hope some of the information here will give you some confidence in dealing with this disease, which in and by itself will reduce the load on doctors and nurses who, from the looks of it, will be quite busy in weeks and months to come. At the same time, we hope to give you information that helps you tell when it is time to get professional medical help. Getting large amounts of people to get that balance right may make all the difference in the time to come.
This guide contains general advice that should be applicable in many places. We may add information that is specific to certain countries or regions, but you should keep your eyes open for more specific information from other credible sources that is more local to where you are.
Some of the authors of this website are not known as great fans of government and authority, but at this point trust in the public health authorities is vital. Where there are discrepancies, trust reputable sources such as:
- World Health Organization (International)
- Centers for Disease Control (USA)
- Robert Koch Institute (Germany)
- European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (EU)
- COVID-19 is real.
- It’s a disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus that mutated to infect human hosts after starting in animals.
- It seems to be about twice as infectious and to cause far more pneumonia, other serious disease and deaths than the seasonal influenza virus (flu). It's also worse than the flu because the world population so far lacks immunity. New diseases are more dangerous, because their infection rates can grow incredibly rapidly (even having exponential growth). Such rapid transmission of a new disease can swiftly overwhelm even outstanding health-care systems, making it impossible for everyone who needs care to access it - and in turn contributing to more severe disease and death.
- Containment of COVID-19 is the best chance we have to save a large number of lives. Containment requires widespread cooperation with and implementation of measures like accessible testing and social distancing (see Level 1 below).
- For these reasons, it is time now to change our way of life (for now) to address the very real threat this pandemic poses to our world.
Remember that there is no difference in potential infectiousness between friends and strangers. There is no race, ethnic group, or nationality that is innately more likely to get or transmit the virus than another. Try to help others when you can without being in contact with large groups of people unnecessarily. There are obvious trade-offs here that everyone has to weigh for themselves. Some people will need to have more contact with other people than others. Slowing the spread is never absolute, but over all of society, our efforts still work when everyone does what they can, within their limits.
At this point the site uses metric units in many places, although sometimes both metric and imperial units are provided. We hope to offer metric and imperial versions of everything in the next few days.
YOU CAN HELP MAKE THIS SITE BETTER. If you see something that could be better, please click here to file an issue. As you can see there the backend of this website is on Github, so if you know that environment you can probably think of other ways to help. To be successful, this will need to be an expanding collaborative effort.
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