Anyone avoiding the gym because of the you-know-what virus?

Gyms that need to shut down should take this as an opportunity to try out various types of virtual gym training. Web sites, YouTube, etc.

It really is crucial to isolate regardless of how good you feel. This is really the only way to slow this virus down. Yes, eventually most of the population will get it. But we need to reduce the number of people infected all at the same time or else we risk collapse of our health care system. That means medical assistance will be scarce for everything, not just people critically ill with the virus. Besides deaths from the virus, people will die from other things that could have been helped. We could easily lose 1 or 2 million people in the US alone just from the virus, but there will be indirect deaths also if we don't slow down the infection rate so we stay within the capacity of our health care system to handle the extra sick people.

The countries most successful in slowing down the virus started isolation and quarantine and especially mass testing many weeks ago. The US is just beginning to make free testing available - before, doctors had a hard time getting the tests done even though from symptoms they suspected the novel coronavirus. The price was impossible for many people (as high as $3000) and insurance companies were balking at paying for it.

Our numbers are low only because we have not been testing. The UK authorities say official figures for number of infected should be multiplied by 10 to 20, and they have been testing more than the US. No reported cases in our home area does not mean no cases of infection. This is also flu season, and without testing - it is easy to mistake the coronavirus for the flu or even a bad cold in people with mild or even moderate cases.

There is no way to tell if you or anybody else is asymptomatic but contagious. Cleaning surfaces is good, because infective particles do deposit on them and can remain infective for several days. But this seems to be primarily transmitted via aerosols coming from infected mouths when the contagious person speaks, coughs, or sneezes (the last two have the greatest range).

Some people who have recovered from the virus are getting relapses because they didn't knock out the virus enough. Good news is that current thinking is that a successful recovery does give you immunity for an unknown amount of time.

But meanwhile - don't go exposing yourself deliberately to get immunity because there is also no way to tell if you are among the unlucky 12% that get very ill and need medical assistance. About half of those (5% of total infections) will need hospitalization and will likely go into respiratory failure and need a ventilator for a long period.

We do not have enough ventilators (no country does) to deal with the numbers likely if the virus spreads as anticipated. In Italy, people are dying because of lack of ventilators. The staff has to decide who to help breathe and who to let die. Doctors and nurses are becoming sick, at least one doctor has died from it, and personal protection equipment such as even just masks are in very short supply.

In the US, masks are already in dangerously short supply and we still have not yet gone to full ventilator production. That might change soon, but we should have started weeks ago. Ventilators are not simple equipment.

Italy has an excellent health care system, twice as many doctors per person as the US, more hospital beds per person than the US. If their healthcare system can be overwhelmed - so can any country's.

So please - don't take chances. Figure out ways to get your training in at home. Use the technology to stay in touch with exercise buddies and trainers. Even if you get a mild case (as most will), you can infect others and those who become seriously ill at once will be too much for our healthcare system. Not just old people, either. A major chunk of people hospitalized with this virus are 20-45 years old. They are also dying.