Good morning,
It feels like things are shifting in both good ways and bad in the worldwide crisis of Covid. There is a decent chance there will be a vaccine that has been sufficiently tested and has proven moderately effective by next summer, and by that time, perhaps as many as 30 percent of the people in the U.S. will have had the infection and have acquired some immunity. This is not certain, of course, but there is reason to believe that the pandemic will slow considerably at that level of penetration. It also is not known how much immunity a previously infected person will have, or how long it will last, but there is good reason to believe there will be some immunity for the great majority who have been infected (this is the case with most similar diseases).
That 30 percent rough estimate comes from several studies that show there are often 10 times as many infections in an area as the actual number who have tested positive. Since in the U.S. almost 6.5 million people have tested positive, this would mean that as many as 65 million have already been infected. And since we are averaging over 40 thousand new cases a day, getting to 30 percent of the population seems more than likely by next summer, using only a 5 times multiple.
That so many people in the U.S. will have been infected by that time is, of course, part of the really bad news. And it did not have to be this way. Many, many mistakes were made in this country that were not made in others. On a more positive note, the percentage of people who die after infection is dramatically lower than the earlier numbers people were using. The reasons are that a much younger population is now being tested, many people other than those who are very sick are being tested, treatment protocols have improved, and the early estimates of the percentages who would die were much too high.
On the negative side, our failure to develop a national strategy and to implement an effective testing program means we are in for many more months of the spread of this disease. And very, very sadly, many more deaths. The wild disparity between locales, some not taking sufficient preventive measures and others using overly severe lockdowns and unrealistic rules for too long has been a disaster. The lack of an agreed upon national plan has caused confusion, rebellion, and an acceleration of the breakdown of trust in our government and our ability to pull together toward a common goal. All this means there is much economic hardship yet to be endured. Reviving our economy and healing the fabric of our torn national spirit will be a long, slow process – if we can accomplish these things at all.
But this is exactly our task. We must each do what we can. No one can know the outcome of a great struggle whilst in the midst of it. Each of us can only make our best effort to do what we can. A few quotes that help me in these difficult times:
Clare Pinkola Estes:
“Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely. It is not given to us to know which acts, or by whom, the critical mass will tip toward an enduring good. What is needed for dramatic change is an accumulation of acts, adding, adding to, adding more, continuing.”
Try to be kind and considerate, remembering the words of Philo of Alexandria:
“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.”
Also take to heart this advice from Kurt Vonnegut:
“Be soft. Do not let the world make you hard. Do not let pain make you hate. Do not let bitterness steal your sweetness. Take pride that even though the rest of the world may disagree, you still believe the world to be a beautiful place.”
And this from Morris West:
“It takes so much to be a full human being that there are very few who have the enlightenment or the courage to pay the price. One has to abandon altogether the search for security and reach out to the risk of living with both arms. One has to embrace the world like a lover. One has to accept pain as a condition of existence. One has to court doubt and darkness as the cost of knowing. One needs a will stubborn in conflict, but apt always to total acceptance of every consequence of living and dying.”
Dealing with Covid today
Starting from where we are now, several factors should mean this country will be in a much better place by the fall of 2021 in relation to the pandemic. And we can hope this will be the case in relation to our political nightmare as well. But what to do now? The four things we should already have done, and which can still be implemented to a certain extent, are:
1. Develop a national strategy and be consistent over time, making modifications, but not abrupt changes (which requires thinking in an appropriate timeframe).
2. This means recognizing that Covid-19 is still going to be at least a 1-year problem and not something that severe rules or shutdowns can fix.
3. In developing a national strategy, make sure it fits a large majority of the people, so most of the population will buy in voluntarily over time.
4. Once the above points are in place, use persuasion and not mandates.
The only way rules and requirements work over time in a democracy is when most people voluntarily comply. We cannot do what China did with a lockdown. China is a very authoritarian state – they could lock down and make it work. That was never a possibility in the U.S. The model I have used often is Sweden. They developed a set of guidelines and began persuading the citizenry, not ordering them or arresting them for non-compliance. Their schools remained open, as well as most of their businesses.
Someone asked if the cultural differences between the U.S. and Sweden would have made their response to Covid less effective in the U.S. There is no question that dealing with Covid here was more difficult and complicated than in Sweden. But they basically used the above four points as their basis for action – and we certainly could have done that. And can now.
In the U.S. it should have been vividly clear from the beginning that overly strict mandates would create a growing backlash. To stop the spread of Covid does not require every single person following every rule. It just requires that most people make an attempt to do the important small things a lot of the time. And this will only happen in a country as diverse as the U. S. if the great majority of people accept that it is important to try to comply with the requested measures. Getting most people to make a good faith effort to be careful – that is the end result that will have the greatest positive impact over a long-term time frame.
To understand how severe measures do not work, consider France. After an initial surge of cases in March and April, they used severe rules to beat back the rise in infections. As they have tried to return to normal, however, their infection rate has exploded. The last weeks in August and beginning of September have brought a higher infection rate than at any time in the spring.
Or consider India. India did a very early lockdown, before there were many cases in that country. But this policy has been a complete failure. After two months, the economy was collapsing and more and more people were refusing to accept the lockdown. Today, India has perhaps the fastest spreading incidence of Covid-19 in the world.
The chart from Sweden is completely different. They added a testing and tracing program to their initial policies, and the rate of spread has now fallen dramatically. Crucially, the number of people dying from Covid is only 3 or 4 a week in the whole country – much better than New York, or France, and many other countries that were being held up as success stories.
Sweden made mistakes, the biggest being they didn’t put in place a well thought out testing program early on. Doing so is what allowed Germany to be successful. Sweden should have done that, and we should have done so in the U.S. Our two biggest mistakes were not developing a national plan and not developing a well-funded and well-thought our testing program. This is why our death chart is a disaster compared to Sweden’s (note that our chart is measuring thousands of deaths, while Sweden’s is individuals, and they have been averaging less than 5 deaths a day for 6 weeks, and about 1 a day for the last 3 weeks):
In a national plan, there needs to be a provision for a fairly dramatic lockdown in specific areas that reach an overwhelm level, like New York in April. But it needs to be time-limited (perhaps 3 weeks) and geographically specific so people can know how to plan. This means accepting that the goal cannot be to eradicate the disease quickly. By late April it was clear that Covid-19 was already so widely spread in the U.S., and the world, that eradication would not be possible. Now, the goal has to be to manage it as best we can with testing, tracing, and isolating infected persons. We will not get rid of Covid-19 by lockdowns or severe mandates – we must learn to manage it while also learning to live our lives as fully as possible while it is with us.
At some point, the combination of sufficient immunity because of having had an infection and an effective vaccine will turn the tide on this scourge sweeping the world. Many, many lives and jobs could have been saved in the U.S. if a national strategy had been developed and implemented until that result was reached. It needed to be a strategy that the great majority of people would voluntarily adopt, however. Still, it is not too late to make a difference. Many lives and jobs can still be saved if a thoughtful policy is implemented. This remains our challenge as citizens and as a country for the next year or more.
To end on a positive note, here is some of the best news I have read – a 15 minute test for home use that can be made cheaply is close to approval. If approved and widely distributed (hopefully with government financial support), people can know in a short time if they are infected, can test themselves often, and if they are infected, most people will make a sincere effort to protect others for a couple of weeks. This could be a game-changer:
At-Home saliva test
In the meantime, you can now buy a test on-line, take the sample at home, and receive the results in 2-3 days.
Covid test
or
Covid test
(My previous essays on the pandemic are on my web site under the heading “During the Time of Covid.”)
David’s web site
May you be safe,
May you be well,
May you live a full and meaningful life
In this time of Covid.
David