On February 25th we sent a Coronavirus Preparedness email to all of USV’s portfolio company CEOs. Since then it has become clear that many countries, including the US, have far underestimated the severity and spread of COVID19.

As of March 10th any company that can have employees work from home should do so. Of course that is not possible if you are operating a production facility, or distribution center, or other labor that has to be carried out in person. For those companies, they should offer paid sick leave (if it all financially possible), screen anyone coming to work for fever, use surgical masks at work and have employees wash their hands frequently (including right after arrival). Non-essential travel should be canceled for all companies.

We should also call on our mayors, governors, senators and representatives to take urgent measures, including the following:

• Transparent reporting of all cases

• Rapid, decentralized and free testing

• Free medical care for all who test positive

• Paid sick leave for anyone funded by government

• Temporary ban on all gatherings of more than 100 people

• Screening of all airport arrivals for fever

It is not too late to avoid the worst outcome, but we now all need to do our part to slow down the spread in order to avoid overloading scarce medical resources, as explained clearly by this graph

For more suggestions on what to do (and not to do), check out the Flatten the Curve website.

Disclosure: I am writing this from a family trip to Peru, which currently has 11 reported cases, but the number has been doubling so far every 2 days, so I suspect there is significant underreporting still.