We can be safer, even if we ignore the advice of disease specialists

It looks very much as though our fellow-citizens need to eat a lot of fish (i.e. become a lot smarter) if the pandemic news is to become at all better.

Some people find staying indoors very, very difficult.  People with kids find it even more difficult, because their kids are a little more red-blooded (i.e. difficult to control) than typical kids, and parents are often desperate to get away from the little monsters (i.e. kids).  Guys are often more impatient than their women, and find excuses for sneaking out, which means that the women subsequently want to go postal!

There is, however, a lot of opinion among people who know, that even if you can’t bring yourself to follow official instructions, you can do better than toss all of them out, and behave like a loonatic (i.e. lunatic).

(01) Stay home, if possible.

(02) If you just cannot stay home, go out.  But choose a good time to go out, e.g. when there are not a lot of people walking about.  Wear a mask.  Walking about occasionally with a mask—wear one even if the sidewalk is deserted—may lessen your desperation to leave the house when it is not advisable.

(03) If you think it’s too stoopid to wear a mask when you walk outside, well, keep one in your pocket, and pull it out when someone is approaching you.  Those who are watching you will appreciate it.  Not many of us look cool wearing masks.

(04) Some people advise planning a picnic in some open place, with a few of your friends, and keep a reasonable distance between everybody there.  Don’t get upset over anything; don’t argue; minimize the spray, when you talk, or sneeze, or cough.  Avoid hugging and kissing.

(05) If you have to hug and/or kiss, do it so that you’re not face-to-face.

Now we get into the dangerous area.  Each of the previous 5 suggestions is a little riskier than the previous one, so if you feel yourself about to got nuts with sheltering in place, walking outside with a mask, for instance, is better than risking your family by just going berserk and rushing into a disco and dancing till dawn, and then coming home.

(06) This next idea might not be approved by all epidemiologists, but some people suggest that, if your family is fairly clearly virus-free—and bear in mind that many people who are infected never appear to be infected at all—and a friend’s family is also virus-free as far as they can tell, it only increases the risk very slightly to consider both families together as one "family."  It still increases the risk.  But not a terrible amount.  You guys can get together for a two-family party, with only slightly more risk than the single family.  With more than two families, the risk goes up considerably, and the number of people affected is also greater.*

(07) Eating at a restaurant is risky, even if they have spaced-out tables.  The more time you spend at a restaurant, the riskier it is.  But, if your restaurant has outdoor tables, that's a lot less risky than indoor tables.  Eat fast—no need to swallow your grub like a maniac, but do try not to dawdle—and get home.  The restaurateur will appreciate your freeing up the table, unless you’re drinking, and paying for the liquor, in which case they would probably like you to stay all night.  But it is safer to get home.

I'll stop there.  It’s been several weeks since I read the article on which this post is based, and I can’t remember all of the details.  Bear in mind that (A) I am not an expert (though I can follow some of the probabilistic arguments), and (B) these principles have not been tested out experimentally.  If you want to hunt down a better-researched article, search for "quarantine fatigue is real".

Pennsylvania is Green, which means that our infection statistics is level or falling.  Members of my family live in Arizona, which never went into sheltering in place in any shape or form, but have chosen to open up their economy.  I sincerely doubt that their economy is going to be a lot better than that of Pennsylvania, for all their foolish bravery.

Tip generously; at least let personal service people suffer a little less.

Even if you go on a protest, wear a mask.  Why carelessly infect a police officer who is doing his duty as he perceives it, and beating you up?  Why be mean?

Arch

*Note: If you decide to go with suggestion (06), decide on the best choice of outside family, check with them whether they think it's a good idea, and stick with that family!!  Don't choose a different family each weekend; the risk factors multiply exponentially!  That means you could quadruple the risk (I'm not sure of the exact multiplication factor) instead of only doubling the risk, etc.
  This is a good plan, especially if you have kids; because if kids are at a certain stage of social development, it is awful for them to be cut off from their buddies.