[FRIAM] the end of the pandemic

[Steven A Smith]

Dave -
> The COVID-19 pandemic will end, at least in the US, by mid-June, 2020.
>
> This assertion is premised on making a distinction between the biological and the perceptual.
>
> The virus is not going away, a vaccine may or may not be found and made widely available, and treatments that reduce severity and death rate may or may not be soon at hand. Hot spots will continue to flare. Model-based prognostications will be confirmed.  And none of this will matter.
>
> A radical shift in perception from "we're all going to die" to "I have next to zero chance of severe illness or death" is reaching a tipping point and a catastrophic (mathematical sense of the word) change from one to the other is imminent.
>
> "Science" will quickly confirm (justify / rationalize) this shift  — after all, my individual risk is 150,000 / 300,000,000 or "pretty damned small."
>
> Politicians will quickly cave to this new perceptual reality and socio-economic restrictions will collapse.
>
> The percentage of the population that wear masks (just one example of a behavioral phenomenon) will roughly equal the number that fastidiously fasten their seat belts; but this and similar behaviors will mitigate the the infection/death rate.
>
> Covid will be PERCEIVED to be no worse than the flu, the death rate will become "acceptable," and the current media "hysteria" will fade away.
>
> There will be a segment of the populace — mostly the affluent elderly and individuals who have acquired money/influence/notoriety the past few months — who will argue against these changes but their objections will be quickly countered with, "why should I suffer all kinds of consequences — ones you do not share — to cater to your fears or your ego?"
>
> None of the above should be interpreted as anything except a simple observation / prediction.

/Look away...nothing to see here... move along... nothing up my sleev/e!

Glen (and others here) often use the idiom of "strawman" and "steelman"
as apparatus for argument or maybe more to the point of my interest,
illuminating dialog.  I would like to bring up a related idiom of "the
stalking horse".  I would like to submit your prediction here as such is
significantly meant (and taken) as a "stalking horse"... And the p;oint
of it is "what is it helping us to think about in a different way?"

I simply can't read this as a "simple observation / prediction"... I
believe it is laced with judgements and assumptions... some I agree with
and some which I find either questionable in substance or in intent, but
all worth inspecting. 

I don't want to bash you with this Dave, just put it out on the table in
the same spirit I think you are offering these observations.   What DOES
this observation expose and what does it (perhaps) obscure?   Can it do
both at the same time?  

    /A radical shift in perception from "we're all going to die" to "I
    have next to zero chance of severe illness or death" is reaching a
    tipping point and a catastrophic (mathematical sense of the word)
    change from one to the other is imminent. /

I think this phrase (framed by other phrases like "media hysteria")
suggests that whatever this pandemic (virtually?) the entire planet has
been experiencing is predominately a psychological/social experience,
rather than the biological/physiological phenomenon identified as
SARS-Cov-2 and it's biological coupling with it's newly found host
population of modern humans who live, work, and socialize in confined
spaces and travel widely (often in closely confined conveyances).   It
seems to imply that this last 4-8 weeks of radical self/government
incited social-distancing has had NO (or little) effect on the
biological reality of the network spread of a human-human airborne
disease, and that it has been ENTIRELY (or mostly) a tool of social
manipulation and control (and/or self-soothing?).

I don't want to suggest for a moment that we as a people/culture are not
capable of mass hysteria or mass illusions...  and in fact would submit
that ideas like "politics" or "economy" or "society" are constructed on
precisely that.   The part of your observation (without accepting or
rejecting the prediction aspect) that exposes that aspect I think is
very important... but to expose it in a way that is limited to
undermining *one* illusion, whilst supporting *yet another* does not
improve our circumstance, but rather simply stirs the mud in a different
direction.

I think your allusion to seat-belt laws (and my own extension of that to
motorcycle helmet laws) is apt and relevant but wrong.   Both seem to
*only* preserve the sensitivities and sensibilities of the public and/or
emergency-response people who have to scrape up the gore that might have
been mildly less gory with those safety devices in use.   I will also
admit (in this tangent) that seat-belts and helmets usually/mostly also
help to shift the costs of insurance-supported-recovery from/to funeral
expenses, etc.  I'm fairly confident that the my wearing a mask while
mixing in a population whose R0 is close to or above 1.0 (whether from
herd immunity or lack of infection in the community or effective
prophylaxis) protects others from the *probability* of my infecting
them, as well as *signalling* to them that *I* believe R0 to be
sufficiently high without it so as to want to reduce my own
participation with this asymmetric "spittle barrier".  

I currently never leave my property without a bandana and raise it over
my mouth and nose anytime I expect to be within a few yards of other
people or am on approach to them.  I am *over* careful with this by some
standards for two specific reasons related to your "perception" point.  
I want to reinforce the idea that it is prudent for everyone who might
have the virus to keep their spittle to themselves whether it is a
cough, a sneeze, or just the specks that fly while speaking whether
currently in a frothy mood or not.   I also feel *midly* safer with that
in place while standing opposite someone *without* their own
face-covering and without a sneeze shield (virtually all retail
encounters?) between us.   I also almost entirely avoid close contact
(same room) with anyone I recognize as high-risk (elderly,
immuno-compromised, etc.) and maintain the 6'+ prescribed distance from
everyone not already "in my pod" (nod to Nick's term) with or without masks.

- Steve




>
> davew
>
>
>
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