Instead of lockdowns, teach people how to socialize safely in the time of coronavirus

In response to the rising Covid-19 death toll and case counts in the U.S., calls for a national lockdown have been escalating. In an open letter to America’s decision-makers, more than 150 medical professionals urge them to “shut it down now, and start over.” In the letter, they argue that people should “stay home, going out only to get food and medicine or to exercise and get fresh air.”

I empathize with the urgency in their plea for people to stay home. I felt helpless watching patient after patient die from Covid-19 while working in a New York hospital in April. In the Northern California Covid-19 clinic I work in, I continue to see patients infected with and harmed by the virus. I, too, am desperate for this pandemic to end.

But I believe that telling people to stay home and avoid all nonessential social interactions is the wrong way forward. We should instead focus on educating people and helping them socialize safely. Lessons from sex education indicate that this will be a more effective approach.

A national lockdown is politically impossible today given widespread unemployment and the deepening recession, not to mention the federal government’s failure to coordinate a national response and the extreme politicization of the pandemic.

Telling people to stay home will worsen the mental health epidemic brought on by Covid-19. Michelle Obama recently admitted that “there have been periods throughout this quarantine, where I just have felt too low.” She is not alone. Since the pandemic started, loneliness has increased by 20% to 30%, and emotional distress has more than tripled. This is not surprising: Numerous studies have demonstrated deleterious effects of social isolation on physical and mental health.

Without widespread understanding of how to socialize safely, the cooped-up need for social connection will lead to surges of long-awaited get-togethers and new infections when lockdowns end. We have already seen this phenomenon in Florida and Arizona. It is happening across Europe. In the urgent care clinic where I work, I have seen an increasing number of people who developed Covid-19 symptoms after attending an indoor get-together following months of judicious social distancing.

If telling people to stay home isn’t the answer, then how do we slow this pandemic? By helping them socialize safely.

Several months into the pandemic, we know more about SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, how it spreads, and how to reduce its transmission from person to person. We know that infection via surfaces is uncommon, and that outdoor transmission is even rarer. We know that face coverings and physical distancing significantly reduce the virus’s spread. At a hair salon in Missouri, for example, two stylists with Covid-19 interacted with more than 100 clients and infected none of them, thanks to the salon’s policy of having stylists and clients wear face coverings.

Instead of insisting that people stay home and indefinitely postpone seeing their loved ones and friends, we should be helping people socialize in ways that minimize the risk of spreading Covid-19.

At an individual level, socializing safely means taking into consideration various factors that determine the risk of coming in contact with SARS-CoV-2: wearing a face covering; frequently washing your hands; being aware of how close you are to others, and for how long; the number of nonhousehold contacts you are with; and ventilation.

Putting that into practice looks like this: Hang out outdoors with a few people instead of indoors with many. Wear a face covering when physical distancing is not possible. Stay home at the smallest hint of fever, fatigue, or cough. Don’t share food or drinks. Limit your social circle and consider creating a “Covid-19 bubble” with one or two close households. These relatively simple steps can help us meaningfully connect with one another without significantly increasing the risk of developing Covid-19.

At a community level, people should be educated about the Covid-19 risks associated with various social activities. Going to the grocery store or playing a noncontact sport like tennis are low-risk activities, while going to a bar or attending a crowded indoor religious service are high-risk activities. Such information, though available, is far from being commonplace knowledge.

It is also essential to enable safe socialization by both making it easy and enforcing it. Closing off streets to cars and painting reminders for physical distancing in public parks and stores are a start, but we can do more. Just as lifeguards at a beach or pool monitor swimmers and discourage them from behaving unsafely, public officials should be deployed in crowded places to remind people to socialize safely and make face coverings freely available to those who need them.

And until the pandemic is under control, the highest-risk activities, such as indoor dining or large concerts, should be discouraged, if not banned.

Some may argue that this “socialize safely” message will backfire and lead to more risky social interactions. There are a few reasons that likely won’t be the case.

One comes from another field of public health: sexual health. Proponents of “abstinence only” education worry that comprehensive sexual education, which covers sexually transmitted diseases, condom use, and safe sexual practices — along with abstinence — leads to increased sexual activity among teens. Yet studies have repeatedly shown that the safe-sex curriculum actually reduces rates of unprotected sex, sexually transmitted diseases, and unwanted pregnancies.

In the context of this pandemic, the “safe socialization” approach has proven successful in other countries. In Japan, people are asked to avoid the 3 C’s — closed spaces, crowded places, and close contact. Instead of self-isolating at home, Canadians are encouraged to exclusively hang out with another household in a “double bubble.”

Telling people to stay home backfired early in the pandemic, resulting in protests, premature reopenings, risky social activities, and the worst Covid-19 pandemic in the world. We can avoid making the same mistake if we choose to accept our social and political realities, heed the latest scientific evidence, and help people socialize safely.

Jason Bae is an internal medicine physician in northern California and medical director of Prealize Health, a company that uses machine learning to power proactive health care.