When coronavirus lockdowns began in the US in March, most Americans learned how to live in a radical new reality governed by three rigid rules: stay home, limit contact with anyone outside your home, and only go to public places when absolutely necessary.
The virus is just as contagious now as it was when case rates peaked in many states last month. And people remain just as susceptible to infection, and all the weird, scary, and sometimes deadly symptoms of Covid-19 that can come with it. There’s still no vaccine or blockbuster treatment. What is changing, as states begin to ease stay-at-home orders, is that people are starting to have choices.
But for many, having options again isn’t exactly cause for celebration. Rather, it requires executing a complex risk calculus every time they contemplate going out the door. What’s riskier, going out to eat or getting a haircut? What if it’s just me and my barber? What if there are two other people there? What if there are five? What if it takes 10 minutes? What if it takes 30? What if the windows and doors are open? What if the windows are shut and the air conditioning is running?
These are the kinds of questions Erin Bromage set out to answer in writing a blog post earlier this month, entitled “The Risks—Know Them—Avoid Them.” An immunologist at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, Bromage had been following the coronavirus outbreak since December and posting daily updates about it to his Facebook page. One of his wife’s friends started printing them out every day for her boss, a federal judge in Rhode Island whose position prohibits him from being on social media. Eventually, she got sick of it and asked Bromage to start a blog. So he did. He called it Erin Bromage: Covid-19 Musings, and updated it with his daily thoughts on the latest statistics and study results.
For months, most posts got read a few dozen or hundreds of times. But Bromage’s explainer on risks and how to weigh them went completely viral. By the end of the first week, it had garnered 13 million views. Now it’s millions past that and has been translated into eight languages, including German, Italian, and Spanish.
WIRED spoke with Bromage to talk about how his advice shot around the world and what you can take away from it to navigate life during a pandemic.
WIRED: Did you ever expect your newly birthed blog to blow up like this?
Erin Bromage: Not at all. The response has been absolutely staggering.
What do you think it says about the kind of information people are hungry for right now?
I started doing
