Numbers can be difficult. Stats can be worse. And when we think we have hard data, it’s only as good as it’s context and the fountainhead. Without a pure fountainhead, we’re not even getting untainted data with which to work.
I’ve been something of a silent observer as the world closes up to contain the spread of the Wuhan Coronavirus (COVID-19, etc…) and three things have stuck out to me most:
We’re all taking the numbers at face value. I have two specific examples among many I could choose.
The high death rates in Italy compared to Germany. Why? Do we know the numbers of the elderly who have been infected? Does Italy have more elderly per-capita than the US? I saw a chart showing that over 75% of the fatalities in Italy were folks who had at least two pre-existing medical issues.
There has also been an assumption that the US will have the same 8%+ fatality rate of Italy (why not assume we’ll be closer to Germany’s 0.1% rate?) As more cases are discovered in America, the fatality rate is plummeting, not rising. It’s dropped from about 3.5% just a week ago to around 1% as of today.
My point here is that numbers at face value can be a harbinger of doom if we don’t have the context, which may reveal a much more optimistic outlook.
Even our experts have wildly different opinions and projections. Some saying 80% of the country will be infected and several million will die, and some are saying that the best thing to do is to wash your hands, keep your distance, and turn off the news. There is a whole lot of unknown.
Which brings me to the fear of the unknown. Somewhat natural, I suppose. We’ve got a whole lot of it floating around now. Wondering how much worse this virus could be when compared with the flu or the somewhat recent H1N1 outbreak will have you laughed from the public square. If you suggest that it might not be as bad as the prophets of doom on social media or the corporate media suggest you’re made to be a fool who knows nothing.
Spoiler alert: None of us know much of what is going to happen. It will probably be far less severe than the worse case scenarios and maybe in part to the precautions we’ve started to take, but merchanting in fear is a filthy business.
Be thoughtfully cautious, keep some distance for a few weeks, enjoy the break and learn new skills and knowledge, and be ready to attack when things settle down again. I suspect it will be better much faster than you or I initially expected.