Note: I updated the post below on March 11, to reflect state guidance on when to call your doctor. Knowledge about the epidemic is changing rapidly, so other information in this blog post could become outdated at any time.

My wife and I had dinner last night with a long-time friend who is in active practice as a family practice physician. She shared some information about the COVID-19 coronavirus disease that I consider so helpful, I want to share it.

First, don’t panic! The vast majority of us, who have no preexisting illnesses that make us more vulnerable, will experience symptoms similar to influenza or a very bad cold if we’re infected by coronavirus 2019. That means fever, lots of coughing and sneezing, and possibly generalized body aches. It won’t be pleasant, but it won’t require hospitalization and certainly won’t be fatal — for most of us.

Data is still coming in with which public health experts calculate mortality and hospitalization rates. At the time of this writing, however, they think 10 to 20 percent of infected people will require hospitalization and around 3.8 percent (38 out of every 1,000 people infected) will die. Again, people who have other, chronic health problems, like cardio vascular disease or chronic, obstructive pulmonary disease, are much more likely to become seriously ill or die than those of us who are relatively healthy before the virus infects us.

Even if our symptoms are mild, if we are diagnosed with COVID-19, we be asked to isolate ourselves at home until our symptoms disappear. Our physician friend says her employer told her that if she contracts the disease, her employer will not allow her to return to work until 24 hours pass without a single symptom, including cough.

Isolation means isolation! We will be expected to make no trips to the grocery, drug store, or anywhere except a medical facility for care. When diagnosed, we’ll be told to go straight home, without stopping for supplies or medicines. Failure to adhere to such restrictions could put the health of more vulnerable people at risk.

Because none of us know when infection might happen, our physician friend told us she has made sure her house is stocked with everything she might need for two weeks of isolation: food, medicine, pet food, facial tissues, etc. Today, Peggy and I did the same thing. We purchased nonperishable foods that we can store for months, because we could get infected today or a couple months from now. We also stocked up on the same over-the-counter medicines we would use to treat a bad cold: acetaminophen (Tylenol®) for fever, diphenhydramine (Benadryl®) for sneezing and runny nose, pseudoephedrine hydrochloride (Sudafed®) for nasal congestion caused by swollen membranes, guaifenesin (Mucinex®) for chest congestion from excess phlegm, and dextromethorphan (Delsym®) for cough.

Another revelation I got from our physician friend regards seeking care for what might seem like a bad cold or flu, something I would not normally do. March 11, the Indiana State Department of Health tweeted about who should contact their healthcare providers when they become ill:

Previously, I reported that our physician friend suggested is that if I come down with a bad cough with fever, I should call my doctor, even though I wouldn’t normally do so for a viral illness like the cold or flu. Normally, if I experience such symptoms, I just treat them myself symptomatically, because I know there’s nothing my doctor can give me to cure a viral illness. But while the COVID-19 epidemic is still going on, we should change that practice and at least call our doctors if we have a fever and cough, so the doctor can decide whether to test us for COVID-19. Why bother with a test that won’t change the method of treatment? Because if we’re lucky and the test shows no COVID-19, isolation at home won’t be as important.

Now, it seems clear that relatively few people who contact their healthcare providers will even be eligible for a COVID-19 test. This is just one example of how information about this epidemic is changing by the day, and sometimes by the hour.

About the only things any of us can do to prevent infection is to stay away from infected people and wash our hands frequently. This is challenging enough as we go through our daily lives, but reports that some people can have the disease without having symptoms themselves further complicates the former tactic. To me, this means we should all expect to contract COVID-19 and prepare now for the isolation we’ll need to practice when it happens.