A letter to all my fellow human beings: "You can save someone else's life."

I have to respond. I owe it to myself, as a person. I understand that many people are confused by the Corona crisis. Admittedly, it is not easy to understand: an invisible virus that can only be fought when it has not really struck yet. Let me clear up that confusion: a tragedy is coming at us. If we strictly follow the current measures, it will be hellish, but perhaps not yet catastrophic. But this week it quickly became clear how difficult it is for some to play the obedient citizen. So I guess it will be catastrophic. We walk into the abyss with open eyes, out of self-interest.

Je m'en fou attitude

There is no more time to be noncompliant, to laugh about advice given, to have some mighty bold talk and to complain about the measures and therefore have one last time together and organize a lockdown party. Yes, you heard correctly. Several people organized lockdown parties this week. Incredibly foolish. Do not get me wrong. I have a lot of understanding and compassion for all restaurant and café owners and for all the organizers of countless events that have to be canceled. But even a nice yield from one Friday night disappears into thin air compared to the losses associated with practicing social distancing one day later.

It makes me sad. People are often stubborn. We like to go against the grain, aren't we? I don't give a damn, we say. We are too much set to our individual desires to manage this epidemic. Our individualism is going to kill us. The only countries (such as Japan, Hong Kong, and Singapore) that have so far managed to curb the epidemic, which have really realized '#FlattenTheCurve' are countries

1. which have experience in epidemics (SARS, bird flu, etc),
2. who have fast-reacting governments that can and dare to intervene drastically, and
3. whose population has a great deal of civic spirit and discipline, who give the precedence of the collective over the individual.

We can't do much about the first two ourselves, but we owe that third to ourselves.

Save a life

It is a historic opportunity! We can now really mean something for each other and for our country. It is as if each of us can perform a heroic act by saving the lives of our fellow human beings. If you thought you'd never run into that situation. Well, here it is, all over the world. Each of us can now save a life by acting responsibly, by placing the collective above the individual.

Our task is clear. The degree of infection for this highly underestimated virus is 2 to 3. This means that every infected person infects 2 to 3 other people on average. Ok, it doesn't look that bad, you might think.

Think again.

Because if you infect two other people, they each infect two other people (so 4 in total), and they in turn (8) and in turn (16), and if you repeat this 10 times, you have more than 16,000 people infected ... on your own. That was the optimistic scenario. If you each infect 3 people (and they in turn too), you have infected 1.5 million people after as many days. Since you are not the only one who transmits infections, within a few weeks we will be in a situation where all sources of infection are fused together and that 60 to 70% of all people in Europe are infected.

So we have to bring down the infection rate. It must be under 1! So you should come into contact with as few people as possible, so that you

1. do not become infected yourself, or
2. infect maximum 1 other person (preferably none) if you do.

Since most people do not live alone, and since it is almost impossible not to infect your housemates (partner, children) if you are infected yourself, the second is almost impossible in practice. So only the first is feasible: make sure you don't get infected. But since we don't know who is infected and who isn't (the labs can't handle that many analyzes), you have to assume that everyone is potentially infected. That's the nasty thing about this whole story: you only know a week later that you had been infected a week earlier. People don't have it tattooed across their forehead.

The directive is clear: isolate yourself with your house partners. Limit contact with others to what is strictly necessary, and in that case, keep your distance from each other and follow the rules of hand hygiene, etc. Visiting friends is not an option! Everyone shall suffer from these measures, but it is especially galling if those measures are made meaningless by people who think they are immunized against all diseases. Or don’t think at all.

The frontline

The war of the coming weeks and months will be fought in hospitals. That will be the battlefield, and it's not going to be pretty. The soldiers on the frontline are the orderlies and nurses, doctors, and all heroes in health care. Most other people will notice that it's a war out there, but will not look the enemy directly in the eye. Unless of course, you have to bring a sick grandfather or grandmother to the hospital and are being told that he or she is too old to be cared for. That's pure horror, and I hope you'll be spared from that.

But the soldiers on the frontline will not be spared from that. They will face a quasi-hopeless battle and will have to make heartbreaking choices because they simply cannot help everyone who needs help. In Italy, for every 4 coronavirus deaths, 3 could have been avoided if there had been enough beds, medical staff, and especially ventilators.

We will be able to save some of them, the rest will die. It feels strange to write this sentence down. It doesn't feel real. It doesn't fit our worldview, which is softer and less raw. But in all likelihood, it will happen anyway. I apologize if I am inordinately anxious. It is with no pleasure at all that I set out this list of measures, but as long as many people still do not understand the seriousness, we must be explicit.

Those who get the bad luck of becoming seriously ill in the coming weeks will depend on the courage, self-sacrifice, and selflessness of the heroes in healthcare. They will skip breaks and run double shifts. They will keep going, even though they are exhausted, and this for many weeks, even months at a time. And face it, they are miserably remunerated!

In a normal war, the severity of the fight does not depend on the discipline of your own rearguard. This time it is. The more we behave now, the less likely our soldiers will go through their knees and give up.

Do it for all the people at the front: “Flatten the curve, and spread the word!”