14 weeks

14 weeks is 98 days. We're creeping up on 100 days of trying to keep COVID 19 under control. I find it strangely satisfying that the 100 day mark brings a bit of predictability to this situation. I've spent the last 14 weeks trying to guess what kind of decisions the various layers of government are going to make, when businesses are going to open, and when we might get back to some sense of normalcy (I refuse to accept this notion of the new normal). I've been frustrated when logic and reason were subsumed by what I thought was fear but soon realized was politics. I've watched the Virus Eradication religion grow and evangelize the sacrament of the mask. We're finished with rapidly evolving response to the virus. We've basically ended up where I thought we should be right from the beginning of this thing. We're going to try to live with it. 

Most businesses are open. Entertainment and diversions are still largely not happening. I've eaten in a restaurant again. I've been back to the gym (although it's much harder to get there when I'm working at home). We're using online grocery shopping more to avoid wearing a mask while shopping. There is still no baseball. Disney is planning on opening, but the magic will not be coming back when the gates reopen. I don't expect much to change for the rest of the year. People bemoan the spike in cases, but the numbers are still extremely small in context of the population. The numbers aren't telling, at least not yet. We're about to get into the really interesting part of this whole social experiment. 

The media analysis of case counts starts and ends with the number. The bigger the number, the more dramatic the headline. All kinds of guesses and opinions from people who have credentials that make them an acceptable expert usually follow the dramatic headline. The state was opened too soon. There isn't enough testing. The hospitals are going to get overrun soon. The worst is yet to come. When do they really dig into the numbers? The details of the cases that make up that big number matter far more than the number itself. Bad outcomes are not randomly distributed over the people who get infected. Unhealthy people suffer while the stronger survive. What will be the outcome of these spikes in cases? Hospitalizations are creeping up. Does that mean a wave of deaths is coming? We'll see soon. 

A wave of deaths or a flood of recoveries won't change how governments are going to respond to the virus. Lockdowns are no longer a viable option. This is why things will be stable. We are getting a sustainable level of economic activity amidst just enough preventative measures that the people in charge can claim to be doing something. The opening of Disney World illustrates this effort to balance making money with appearing to be doing something about the virus. Masks, distancing, reduced capacity, lots and lots of cleaning is being used to show just how much Disney cares about guests and cast members. Attendance is going to be terrible. People aren't going to be happy. That's not what matters. They can generate some revenue and point to all the ways they care (even if those efforts are not exactly effective at mitigating the spread of the virus). We'll continue inching through this terrible state until a treatment or vaccine gives them (and everybody else) cover to finally open and run the business in a way that will actually earn a profit. 

Nobody is happy with this arrangement. The deadly virus crowd feels like we aren't doing enough to stop the virus while the what's the big deal crowd complains that all these measures are just for show and don't need to be applied so widely. I would love to be fine with the masks so i could go about my life with a mild inconvenience on my face, but I just can't get on board with the mask. They are unnecessary. It's ironic that I'm going out less now that things are more open. I was fine going about my business, but now that I have to wear a mask to go into stores I would rather just stay home. I've accepted that things are going to be wonky for awhile. I don't like it, but I'm relieved to see that we're finally starting to let the virus run its course so we can just get on with our life. 

Data illiteracy

I never read the news reports about what the virus is doing in my home state. I just look at the data that is posted online and form my own conclusions. I occasionally see something about how the cases are still rising and that there is some kind of spike, but I just dismiss that as yet another attempt to manipulate people to have the desire response. The levels of infection are basically sitting at a pretty consistent level while testing goes up and hospitalizations and death are in a steady decline. 

It's ultimately the hospitalizations and deaths that really matter. The virus will continue to spread. This is something people just need to accept. It's not going to stop spreading anytime soon. We're not talking about huge numbers of people here. A thousand cases a day sounds like a lot, but it's not that many when you're talking about a population of millions. 

Sure there are places where the virus never really gained a foothold and kind of petered out. New Zealand is an example. The prime minister is getting all the praise, but she got a huge boost from the fact that she leads a sparsely populated island nation. The population of New Zealand is very close to Colorado's. The largest city only has a bit of a million people. Iceland gets praised for beating the virus. It's also a sparsely populated island with very little population density. Other places that haven't had much of the virus were probably more lucky than effective managers of pandemics. And most of them will not be able to let people from outside their geographically isolated lands visit without having to pass through quarantine first. It's hard to take a vacation in Hawaii when you have to spend two weeks in quarantine before you can actually visit the island.

The people who claim to have all the answers and know the right answer to all the questions really know nothing. You can't do some math and have all the answers. You have to take reality and what's actually happening into account. Sure, stopping your little bits from interacting will stop the virus from spreading, but real people don't perfectly adhere to the instructions of computer code. We don't know if we're early in the cycle or late. We don't know if there will be a second wave. The way talk of the second wave has shifted shows that people just don't know. The early talk was that the second wave would be even deadlier than the first wave. We know which people are most vulnerable to this virus. We could have a huge second wave of infections with virtually no mortality if we just did a better job of protecting the nursing homes. The riots may trigger a spread of the virus, but it's not likely to trigger a wave of deaths (as long as the protesters stay away from their grandparents). 

There is so much effort on keeping the public in line, there aren't many people talking about ways we could mitigate the effects of the virus without treating everybody like their sick. That may be the best way to prevent the spread of the virus, but doing out best to stop the spread of the virus is not the best tactic at this point. The only way out is through.