Note from the founders about the Corona Virus Pandemic
Dear Customer,
I’m sure the news of COVID-19 in Karnataka has now reached all of you. While 5 people have tested positive as of today, we are not yet sure what the true number of cases are as worldwide they have found many cases remain silent for a long time.
At Rose Bazaar, we are very proud to work with farmers, puja ladies and local vendors. They work tirelessly to get you fresh flowers everyday and are the backbone of our operations. They are also the most susceptible in this situation because they travel by public transport, don’t have access to the best healthcare and the cost of illness bears most heavily on them.
Keeping this in mind, in the interest of keeping our customers, our employees and all our families safe, we have made the hard decision to pause deliveries for one week. All existing subscriptions will be extended by a week.
The reason we have decided this is because social distancing (avoiding crowded places) is the most effective way to delay and prevent the spread of this virus. Starting the quarantine even one day earlier can have a huge effect - according to one model, the number of cases can fall by 40% by starting the quarantine one day earlier. Not only do the number of cases fall, the mortality rate changes as well - if we can delay the spread of the virus we give our medical system a fighting chance to treat everyone affected - the greatest danger now is that if the virus spreads rapidly, our hospitals will not be able to treat the cases that are severe.
We encourage everyone to take adequate precaution, avoid crowded places and wash their hands regularly. Please reach out to me, Rhea Karuturi (co-founder) at 9886750009 if there’s any concerns you want me to address.
-Yeshoda and Rhea Karuturi
Co-Founders of Rose Bazaar
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As a community, as we try to grapple with this problem and deal with it, we wanted to share with you the reasoning behind our proactive quarantine.
Source:https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca
This chart, based on China’s numbers shows the true danger of this virus: that for a long time those with the virus don’t show symptoms or get tested. The difference between the orange bars (the official number of cases) and the grey bars (the true number of cases) is what is scary - while the government is testing people, it is only a few weeks later (based on the number of cases that show up) that we can know how many cases went undiagnosed. That is why we are taking decisive action today - the 5 cases found point to the fact that the true number of cases is probably much higher.
And starting the measures early makes all the difference - this is why we have chosen the strategy of Social Distancing - because by avoiding crowded places we can delay the spread of this virus most effectively. And the delay makes all the difference, because it gives our hospitals and doctors time to deal with the severe cases effectively instead of overwhelming their resources.
Source: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/3/11/21171903/coronavirus-social-distancing-pandemic-covid19
The question naturally arises that why isn’t everyone doing this. As business owners, this is a question we do have to consider - why take a hit on our operations when others aren’t, why act first in case we are wrong, why jump the gun or be paranoid? But after reading the abundance of material available, and the experts suggesting 70% of the population will get the virus, we decided the time to act is now. The simple fact is, as leaders of our business, the health of our customers, employees and the community around us is our responsibility. By waiting for others to lead by example despite having adequate proof to concern us, we felt we would be doing a disservice to all our stakeholders. And in the long term, we felt being safe is much more important than risking people’s health by continuing production.
We hope this clarifies our choice of pausing deliveries for the week. Please reach out to us if there’s any additional information we can provide.