REFLECTIONS ON SOCIAL DISTANCING: HOW ARE WE “BEHAVING” IT?
The World Health Organization handbook, “Managing Epidemics: Key Facts about Major Deadly Diseases,” identifies four different stages: 1) Emergence: the introduction of the disease into a community;2) Localized transmission: where cases of infection sporadically appear in a community;3) Amplification: where the germ is able to transmit from person to person and causes a sustained outbreak in the community, threatening to spread beyond it; and4) Reduction: decrease of human-to-human transmission of the germ because people develop immunity and/or effective interventions to…