Tomás Ó Flatharta

📌 A very good explanation of social distancing 📌

This is message from a Doctor to secondary students re covid virus. Worth a read and a forward.

Hi Boys and Girls
Dylan here I am writing to you tonight because I need your help urgently.⏰ For those of you who don’t know me I am a doctor💉 in Temple Street and the Mater hospital.
You all know something of what is going on but there is much more that you need to be aware of. The Corona bug🦟 is spreading fast but you guys are safe. Some of you may get the infection – but you won’t even realise you have it and that is the problem!
You see, this virus is not very strong 💪🏿but it gets around very quickly🚀! Strong fit healthy young people like myself and all of you are going to be fine 👌🏻even if we get it, however, what Im going to tell you, you need to do for your grannies, grandads your sick relatives and family members and finally for me and all my mates in the Mater and Temple street.
One of the biggest problems we are going to have is that doctors, nurses and other health care professionals are going to get infected 🤢🤮(3 of my friends already have it!). We won’t be very sick and we will be fine in the end, but if too many of us get sick then we won’t be able to take care of the people who really need us (like your grannies and grandads etc).
So what can you do?

Well, today the government 🤡announced that you are going to be off school, there is a simple reason for this and it is called social distancing (staying 1.5 to 2 meters📏📏📏 apart). This virus cannot ‘jump’ from one person to the other. If we stay far enough away from each other it can’t spread. If it doesn’t spread , it dies out very quickly and the epidemic eventually disappears. It is estimated that one person, not realising they are infected will pass it on to three 👨‍👩‍👧people. If too many people 👨‍👨‍👧‍👧👨‍👨‍👧‍👧👨‍👨‍👧‍👧👨‍👨‍👧‍👧get sick together and need to go to hospital then we don’t have the doctors,👨‍🔬👩‍🔬 nurses and equipment to take care of them. If however the same number of people get sick but over a much longer period of time then there will be plenty of opportunity to treat everybody and fewer people will die.
Here is where this gets difficult for you guys.
Social distancing is going to be very difficult for most of you.
It is important that you understand that social distancing needs to be practiced continuously. There is no point being let off school if you were going to congregate and gather in gyms🏋‍♀🤼‍♀🤼‍♀, peoples houses, sleep overs, parties🎂🥂🍻 and even pubs (for those of you who are 18 years+!). I have spent the last three weeks doing the Wuhan toe tap 👣with my patients and it’s been great fun. We can no longer shake hands or hug or even kiss when we greet or see each other.
One big advantage of your generation is that you have social media📱💻! So you can keep in touch with each other and know exactly what’s going on (for those who suffer from FOMO!). But be careful, that you don’t get ‘fake’ information during this crisis.
Some of you are sitting the leaving cert 📚and I know this is very worrying but your teachers, and parents will do their best to help you during this time. ( I have no doubt that an extra 10% will be added to everybodies oral Irish and French 😂🤣🤣🤣- it will forever be known as the COVID 10)
For those of you were not sitting the leaving cert (and don’t have baby brothers and sisters) I have another favour to ask– if you know any nurses, doctors or healthcare workers who have young children and might need help with babysitting call around and offer your services, so that their parents can come to hospital to help the sick.
I thank you for taking the time to read this.
Stay safe – and remember “if you are sufficiently worried then there’s nothing to worry about BUT if you’re not worried at all then there is everything to worry about” 😷👊