I was wondering how extreme we should be taking Coronavirus and Social Isolation / Self Quarantining. Up until yesterday, I had been following the advice of https://www.flattenthecurve.com/ and avoiding large events, washing hands more, and in general being more careful but not radically altering my life. However today, I've been reading apocolyptia from the author of flatten the curve that the time for responsible action is over and that drastic and immediate measures are the only way to prevent the collapse of society as we know it. Right now Gainesville FL is pretty normal, there's 1 confirmed case elsewhere in Alachua but I'm sure that there's untested cases in GV. I'm getting a little panicky and wanted to know your advice for what I should do about the events coming up given a lack of really explicit CDC guidelines:
1) 4 person trick-taking card game meetup
2) ~8 person outdoor st. patty's day thing with people I have already seen recently
3) ~6 person movie night with a few new people I haven't met before
4) 3 people from my hometown (no confirmed cases in the county yet) that I'll be around after evacuating home per university recommendation
Which (if any) of these do you think are ethical to attend? I really, really, want to go to all of them, as I'm a fairly social guy and am not going to be seeing these people for a while while I'm back home. I've been getting mixed answers about how dangerous it is and what the consequences are. From talking with my parents they said that as long as precautions are taken like washing hands and being outdoors, and keeping food clean that not showing up won't make much of a difference. I really want to believe this and was wondering what everyone's take was here?
+ if it is time to drop everything and hole up in isolation indefinitely, how long to you expect it will last?