A Shelter-in-Place Game to Teach your Children About Viruses and the New World We Live In
As a world society we have created a connected planet that is amazing. But every advance has a down side. Try this game with your family while you hunker down and learn the dimensions of the down side of our connected world.
The rules of the game are simple. The goal: Save the humans, starting with your family. Its a one team game, all the humans against the virus. So its your entire family against the virus.
First you pick any place in the world for the virus to start from. Only limitation: it has to have a commercial airport that services the place. But it can be a really small airport. Some places in the world have only one flight in and out a day!
Second, you pick the best place in the world you can take your family, instantly for purposes of the game, to avoid the virus getting to your family. Same rule applies here; it can be anywhere but it must have an airport nearly.
Now you see if the virus can get to your family.
Use Expedia or some other travel site. Put the airport near the virus as the departure city and your family’s location as the destination city. We are imagining one passenger carrying the virus and they caught it within 24 hours of the flight. Once the two cities are entered, click enter and see if your family is safe…or not so safe (remember its only a game 🙂 ).
How do you decide who wins?
It takes 72 hours for the FDA/CDC/WHO super-science swab test to be positive under the absolutely best circumstances. Probably longer but as the designer of the game, and as a human, I am going to bias the game against the virus.
It takes 120 hours, on average, for a cough or fever to appear with SARS-CoV-2. So if an airport can quarantine the passenger carrying the virus from the origin city you picked because they have a cough or fever, your family is safe.
Now the scoring:
If the virus can get to your family in under 72 hours, the virus wins.
If it takes between 72 and 120 hours it is a draw and your family gets to play the game again.
If it takes the virus more than 120 hours to get to your family, your family gets to live. You can then come up with your own version of family world dominance, as imaging who in your family gets to be Kings, Queens, Princes, Princesses, Knights, etc., as you see fit. Have fun with it.
Below are two examples of my family losing to the virus.
If a coronavirus starts in Wuhan, China and my family is in Columbus, Ohio it takes 38 hours for the virus to get to me. As a Michigan ‘Go Blue’-kind of guy, I picked Columbus to keep my family safe thinking no one, not even a virus, would want to go to Columbus, Ohio! 🙂 ).
Second run was putting the virus in Saudi Arabia, where the 2012 MERS coronavirus began in camels and jumped to humans. I put my family in Milwaukee, WI because I visited there once in mid-December and nearly froze to death. So I thought we would be safe. I was wrong. This is even worse for my family: 21 hours to catching the virus
How about a little friendly competition?
If anyone finds a city combination more than 72 hours or 120 hours apart. post the combination here. The winners will get a free copy of the book I am writing on COVID-19…
