How many lives can you save by isolating yourself?
While Canada's top doctor, Dr. Theresa Tam, has underscored the importance of physical distancing to slow the spread of COVID-19, a recent poll shows that not all residents take the order seriously. In fact, it found that over a quarter of Canadians (26%) are not following the recommendations from public-health officials to their full extent.
In order to show how much of an effect self-isolation and physical distancing can have during COVID-19, two PhD candidates created a that shows the mathematical power of social distancing.
Mathematician Anna Szczepanek and physicist Dominik Czernia made a calulator for the Omni Calculator Project that shows how many lives you can save by isolating yourself in a given outbreak scenario. The team based the tool on research by the Centre for the Mathematical Modelling of Infectious Diseases COVID-19. They add that it is designed to improve public awareness about the importance of staying at home and isolating yourself during a pandemic.The caculator uses 1,000 outbreaks with seven parameters that are directly connected to the virus itself, the actions taken by the government, and your own decisions - you can even specify these to your liking. An outbreak is treated as if it is controlled if the number of cumulative cases is below 5,000, and there are no new infections 12 weeks after the initial cases.
You can try the social isolation calculator with different combinations of parameters to see how self-isolation may increase the chances of stopping a disease.
In the case of 100% isolation, creators say you can save 399 infections and 14 lives. They remark that, "everyone around the world needs to hear this today."
Find out more information and use the calculator .
