Orders to stay at home were broad and strict. The goals were two-fold: to minimize infection and mortality – to"flatten the curve" – and to give health systems the best possible chance not to be overrun. In many places, the numbers of deaths and cases have indeed been coming down inThe restrictions also bought public officials time to build up state and local capacity ability to test and contact trace.
I am a public health scholar and also a leukemia survivor who had a bone marrow transplant – a complicated medical procedure that severely weakens one's immune system. I think my experience can offer some lessons for our current situation. I remember how much harder it was to make decisions about what types of risk were acceptable without the strict guidelines.When I was first released from the University of Michigan hospital after my transplant, the doctors kept me on a very short leash.
As I got further away from the time of my transplant, my immune system started to rebuild, and the leash got a little longer. My medical visits started to spread out. The doctors would tell me it it was OK to try swimming in a private pool, but not in a lake or river because of the risk of bacteria in the water.I wasn't safe from infection. But I was safer.At the beginning of June, many places in the U.S.