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Stay home, save Grandma: Congressmen say social distancing is crucial even for families

Scientist and U.S. Rep. Bill Foster referred Monday to a hashtag trending on social media that he said explains the purpose of social distancing in light of the coronavirus. It's called #dontkillgrandma.

Most COVID-19 illnesses caused by the coronavirus are mild for people who are relatively young and healthy. But for those who are older or who have weakened immune systems, the virus can cause severe respiratory symptoms or death.

So the message Monday from Foster, as well as health executives and U.S. Reps. Sean Casten and Lauren Underwood who gathered at a roundtable in Naperville, was this: It's not safe or responsible for young to middle-aged people who feel well to go about their usual activities without taking precautions.

“The difficulty is that there are a large number of asymptomatic spreaders in this disease,” Foster said. “Simply because you're young, it's not OK to disrespect the social distancing.”

Social distancing calls for people to remain at home as much as possible — work from home, refrain from using public transportation and, under new guidelines issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, avoid gatherings of more than 50. And federal officials on Monday even said avoid gatherings of more than 10.

It is the theory behind the school closures, restaurant closures and event cancellations now widespread across the state and the country. And it's what Mary Lou Mastro, president and CEO of Edward-Elmhurst Health, said Monday is the “No. 1 thing” people can do to help slow the spread of the virus.

When people who don't know they are carrying the coronavirus interact with others, they can spread it through chains of transmission that are impossible to trace. These chains can spread until the virus hits people with chronic conditions that weaken their immune system — such as diabetes or cancer — or people whose age makes them more susceptible to disease.

“That's a real incentive for everyone to take the social distancing seriously,” Foster said, “especially having to do with the elderly.”

Social distancing isn't easy or natural. But it works, Foster and Casten said, and has shown promising results in slowing the instance of new cases in China, the country where the virus originated in late December.

“China does things that we simply do not contemplate,” Casten said about the country's relative shutdown of the Hubei province of roughly 60 million people. “That's really intrusive, but it works.”

Foster said China is “aggressive” about separating family members when someone gets sick.

“That's going to be a very tough thing for us to accept in the U.S.,” he said.

So far, even calls to stay away from crowds have proved difficult for many to accept, Foster said, with revelers still partying over the weekend for St. Patrick's Day.

But staying home to practice social isolation is a moral duty, Mastro said, and a proven precaution.

“For the vast majority of the population ... even if they did contract the coronavirus, they would be fine,” Mastro said. “The purpose of everything that we're doing is to protect the small percentage of the population who would not be fine.”

  U.S. Rep. Bill Foster, a Naperville Democrat, advised staying home as much as possible to help prevent the spread of coronavirus. Rick West/rwest@dailyherald.com
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