Flattening the Coronavirus Curve

Crescent, Flattening the Coronavirus Curve

The ideal goal in fighting an epidemic or pandemic is to completely halt the spread. But merely slowing it — mitigation — is critical. This reduces the number of cases that are active at any given time, which in turn gives doctors, hospitals, police, schools and vaccine-manufacturers time to prepare and respond, without becoming overwhelmed. Most hospitals can function with 10 percent reduction in staff, but not with half their people out at once. (CDC, 2020).

What exactly do those two curves show?

Both curves add up the number of new cases over time. The more people reporting with the virus on a given day, the higher the curve; a high curve means the virus is spreading fast. A low curve shows that the virus is spreading slower — fewer people are diagnosed with the disease on any given day. Keeping the curve down — diminishing the rate at which new cases occur — prevents overtaxing the finite resources (represented by the dotted line) available to treat it.

What sorts of mitigation measures help transform the red curve into the blue curve?

Diseases spread when one person gives it to one or more others, who go on to give it to more people, and so on. How fast this occurs depends on many factors, including how contagious the disease is, how many people are vulnerable and how quickly they get sick.

The difference between seasonal flu and coronavirus is that many people have full or partial immunity to the flu virus because they have had it before or were vaccinated against it. Far more people are vulnerable to coronavirus, so it has many more targets of opportunity to spread. Keeping people apart in time and space with social distancing measures, self-isolation and actual quarantine decreases opportunities for transmission.

For example a packed car — or a packed bus platform — this a great place to spread the virus. But reducing the number of people on the train or platform, by asking people to work from home or to stagger their working hours, enables individuals to stay farther apart, limiting the spread of the virus. That is social distancing in action. This slows the spread.

At Crescent we're learning as we go, too. However, we are researching and consulting the experts every day across all states, working to mitigate risk and flatten the curve.

How has Crescent responded by providing and focusing on Personal Protective Measures for Everyday Use and Implementing top of the line resources for our People.

Personal protective measures are preventive actions that can be used daily to slow the spread of respiratory viruses, these measures include the following:

Voluntary home isolation (Offering short term leave of absence options)
Temperature Checks at the beginning of every shift by Healthy Measures, across all operations. All sites by 4/13 will have the COVID-19 testing kits onsite.
Implemented symptom checks and follow up protocols followed by a 2 week leave for those who meet COVID-19 symptom criteria or conditions that are considered high risk.
Disinfecting, sanitizing and sterilizing everyday tools and high traffic areas.
Enforcing Respiratory etiquette: Persons cover coughs and sneezes, preferably with a tissue, and then dispose of tissues and disinfect hands immediately after a cough or sneeze, or (if a tissue is not available) cough or sneeze into a shirt sleeve, Person is then followed up with regarding their symptoms and etc and sent home,
Mandatory Hand hygiene: All Persons perform regular and thorough hand washing with soap and water (or use alcohol-based hand sanitizers containing at least 60% ethanol or isopropanol when soap and water are not available) every hour across all operations.
Split and reduced schedules to decrease the number of people within an operation to meet the social distancing guidelines.
Social Distancing across all operations- mandatory 6 feet
Implemented Risk Mitigation Strategies to minimize the risk associated with a positive case of COVID 19
Published detailed processes for managing the impact of a positive case or potential positive case
Increased communication to our People, Customers and Partners regarding COVID-19, risk mitigation, Partial unemployment and illness prevention measures. (multi-languages)

According to CDC requirements, Crescent is meeting and exceeding the top 5 risk for manufacturing, logistics and parts fulfillment operations during the COVID-19 pandemic. (R&I, 2020)

Crescent encourages all People to report any issues or problems as soon as possible. The efforts to keep Crescent safe relies heavily on all of us. Report any issues or complaints to your supervisor, manager or SPG. We all are the Crisis Management Team.

Everyone can do their part to help us respond to this emerging public health threat: On March 16, the White House announced a program called “30 Days to Slow the Spread,” which is a nationwide effort to slow the spread of COVID-19 through the implementation of social distancing at all levels of society. Crescent has issued and followed the guidelines to flatten the curve.

The complete clinical picture with regard to COVID-19 is not fully known. Reported illnesses have ranged from very mild (including some with no reported symptoms) to severe, including illness resulting in death. While information so far suggests that most COVID-19 illness is mild, a report out of China suggests serious illness occurs in 16% of cases reported.

COVID NATIONAL UPDATES: DID YOU KNOW?

About Coronavirus,

Most searched FAQs as of April 6, 2020

What is the Coronavirus?

Coronaviruses are common in different animals. Rarely, an animal coronavirus can infect humans.
There are many different kinds of coronaviruses. Some of them can cause colds or other mild respiratory (nose, throat, lung) illnesses.
Other coronaviruses can cause more serious diseases, including severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS).

Are smokers and tobacco users at higher risk of COVID-19 infection?

Smokers are likely to be more vulnerable to COVID-19 as the act of smoking means that fingers (and possibly contaminated cigarettes) are in contact with lips which increases the possibility of transmission of virus from hand to mouth. Smokers may also already have lung disease or reduced lung capacity which would greatly increase risk of serious illness.
Smoking products such as water pipes often involve the sharing of mouth pieces and hoses, which could facilitate the transmission of COVID-19 in communal and social settings.
Conditions that increase oxygen needs or reduce the ability of the body to use it properly will put patients at higher risk of serious lung conditions such as pneumonia.