Anyone interested in the coronavirus and how it will affect you in the coming weeks: here's what it's like in Europe currently and likely what it will be for you -

For me it started as I was flying to The Netherlands and noticed more people wearing face masks, more than I'd ever seen. It was eerie to see three individuals with the masks sitting on a bench in the Lisbon airport, with a TV above warning of the outbreak of the virus in Italy. When I got to Amsterdam everything was normal. Then it started to get hard to ignore the numbers on the news growing in Italy. Soon I'd hear "coronavirus" every now and then in public, as a joke. My friends and I started asking ourselves if the crowd in public felt thinner.

Then the universities suspended classes for an undetermined amount of time. Fewer and fewer people were out every day. I was out one Sunday with a friend, and somehow the conversation turned to 9/11 and she asked what it was like for me. I looked around and said "it kind of felt like this". That evening all establishments where people gathered closed till April 6th (3 weeks). The next day the city was dead. A friend studying here, originally from Italy, decided to fly home before the borders shut down. He sort of laughed at us, because we were in the phase of not accepting that this was coming. A couple days ago, the Netherlands government announced increased measures; no groups of 3+, 1.5 meters apart per person, effective until June 1. That will likely not be the end of it.

I can't explain how surreal it was on that Sunday where they announced the first lock down. Even before the declaration came, you could feel a sense in the air that this was severe. Strangers looked subdued. We walked into a bar, to see that in 30 minutes the city was required to shut down. I had to ask my friend to assure me this had never happened before, and she agreed that it had not. This was something that none of us in the western world had ever experienced.

To everyone in the US: this will be the same for you. This virus is very prone to transmission and can survive on common surfaces for multiple days. The incubation time is 5-14 days, meaning you could be infected for well over a week and have no idea. All the while being able to transmit to others. I believe all continental states have confirmed cases, and you should understand that for every confirmed case there are several more that may exist.

I'd love to be mistaken on this, but to anyone in the US reading who is expecting this will blow over in a couple of weeks or even not get to you: this is going to be the reality for 2-3 months at a minimum. I wouldn't doubt it's closer to a year. The virus spread from China and it took them 2-3 months before they could claim a solid containment. Keep in mind, this included things like pre-emptive quarantining (forcing people to quarantine who MAY have had the virus), as well as other drastic measures that western countries will likely not be able to implement unless citizens do so voluntarily. And if you want to look over detailed numbers yourself, I've attached a good source below to get live updates on global, country, and US state infection/recovered/dead cases below. If you're at all data oriented, this site will really show you the reality of the situation.

That all said, most of us don't have much to worry about as far as mortality. At worst, this will be the flu, and many will contract and experience nothing. And in the end this just means we get to watch more Netflix and play more video games (and I think the US government just passed a stimulus package to get us all paid. It's actually not so bad to be quarantined, once you get used to the idea.

However, this virus is HIGHLY contagious and much more of a threat to the elderly and health compromised than most viruses. The important part now is that those comprosed individuals become infected at a rate that allows Healthcare to keep up with them, so that we minimize their deaths. More than likely, this will spread to nearly everyone in the world. It will hide and grow until we develop a vaccine, and all estimates mean that's more than a year away. Until then, all we can do is basically a "controlled burn", where we don't overload hospitals as the virus inevitably spreads.

This truly is something out of fiction. I'm still waiting to wake up and resume my euro trip. But this is reality, and soon it will be the reality for everyone on this planet. And I'm very interested to see how this changes everything, I assume for the better.

Quick numbers:

Jan 22: 522 cases

Feb 5: 28,000 cases

Feb 19: 75,000 cases

Mar 10: 114,000 cases

Mar 24: 422,000 cases (in two months, we have about 1,000 times the amount of cases)