The following are some points with best available science and data on where we stand and what we should be doing as a society and as individuals. I’ll keep it updated regularly.

Where We Stand

• Health numbers (as of April 8, 2020 — Source)
  - Global deaths: 82,421
  - US deaths: 12,857
  - US tests: 2,082,443 (0.6% of population)
• US unemployment: Rose from 3.5% to 13%, 16 million increase (Source)
• Shortages:
  - Masks: N95 respirator masks and surgical masks
  - Testing: Testing infrastructure and supplies
  - Beds: Hospital and ICU beds
  - Tracing: Contact tracing infrastructure
• Treatment and prevention: Candidate vaccines & antiviral drugs are being developed, some in testing

Some Numbers for Context

• Deaths in World War II: 75 million (50 million civilians)
• Deaths from 1918–19 Spanish Flu: 50 million (2.7% of population)
• Unemployment rate during great depression: 24.9%

What We Should Do As Individuals

• Everyone wear homemade cloth masks. See “Face Masks for All” subsection below, our survey paper, and #masks4all.
• Wash hands: Indirect droplet-based transmission is primary method of transmission (Video)
• Physical distancing
• Maintain immune system health: Exercise, sleep, minimize stress, balance social media distancing & staying connected to community.
• Community: Show love, compassion to each other.
• Stay informed: Go to source scientific papers and data.

Face Masks for All

• Why? Source control. My mask protect you, your mask protects me.
• Do they work? Yes. For both aerosol and droplet (Video, Nature paper)
• Even for speaking? Yes (NIH paper)
• As good as surgical masks? Cloth is 70%+ as effective a surgical masks for even a single layer (Cambridge paper)
• But I’m not sick: 18–50% are asymptomatic (Video, Cruise, Iceland) and most infectious during the first week (Nature paper)
• Will it help economically? Yes. $3–6,000 per mask wearer (Yale paper)
• Will it help slow spread? Yes. Key parameters: (1) % of population that wears one, and (2) mask filtration efficacy. “Wearing a mask is equally effective or more effective than social distancing.” — David Heymann (WHO, HPA, one of the “Disease Cowboys”) — Source
• How do I make a mask? T-shirt only, cloth & rubberband, sewing.
• Can I reuse cloth mask? Yes, wash in soap and dry every time.
• Can we switch as a society? Yes, Czech Republic did it in ~2 days.
• How do we switch? Politicians & famous people do it. “No mask. No sale.” signs on shops.

What We Need to Do as a Society (Governments)

• Test: Significantly expand RT-PCR testing capacity. Innovative ideas: distributed sample collection, sample pooling, ML + CT scans.
• Contact tracing: App-based, privacy-reserving tracing (ML can help here)
• Hospitals: Increase number of hospital and ICU beds
• Supplies: PPE for healthcare workers, ventilators, masks for public
• Financial stimulus:
  -Keep small businesses alive
  - Keep essential business alive
  - Temporary unemployment support
  - Physical & digital infrastructure project investment (highways, 5G, etc)
• Treatment & prevention: Manhattan project magnitude efforts on development of vaccines and antiviral drugs.

Levels of Impact

This pandemic is a global tragedy, but it is also a moment that unites us, that reveals the strength of our community, the human capacity to be compassionate to each other and to work hard in the face of danger. In my view, there are 7 levels of impact this pandemic has on our society.

• Biological & Medical (Life & Death)
• Psychological (Emotion — Fear & Love)
• Social (Collective Cognition & Panic)
• Economic (Financial & Employment)
• Political (Partisanship & Policy)
• Existential (Civilization-Level Extinction)
• Philosophical (Meaning of Life)

In the following video, for each level, I describe the pain of the impact, our challenge for how to overcome it, and the hope for the silver lining in this difficult time and for a positive future on the other side:

Twitter Accounts to Follow for COVID Wisdom

This list will grow. If you have suggestions, let me know. Twitter has become a powerful jumping point to recent research and data:

• @EricTopol: Good source of latest studies and scientific wisdom
• @ScottGottliebMD: No-nonsense policy
• @jeremyphoward: #masks4all, good source of latest studies
• @DrEricDing: Epidemiological and health economics
• @naval: Policy and philosophy in a time of pandemic

Keep in touch with me on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, or Facebook for frequent videos on the pandemic. Stay safe everyone. Stay strong, calm, and informed. We’ll beat this thing!