Uncertainty

With far too much of the world gripped in a panic induced by a pandemic, I've been contemplating how poorly the vast majority of humans deal with uncertainty in life. The following ramble came out of that exercise.

Fear of the unknown has been considered the most potent of fears experienced by humans. A microscopic virus cannot be seen by the unaided eye with only its casualties left behind to be witnessed as evidence of its passage -- unless you work in a lab analyzing test samples. For all intents and purposes it is almost supernatural to the lay person, resulting in an intense primordial fear being felt by more than a few and far too many.

The most dangerous problem with intense fear is that it is intrinsically irrational and furthermore generates deeply irrational reactions that really can't be called thoughts. Feeding into that is another fear that is common and lurks below the surface in a constant fashion: uncertainty. Often manifesting as anxiety over change, it can be debilitating all by itself.

Now add the normal fear of death and you have a cocktail of genuine madness that is capable of being spread more quickly than any virus. If that wasn't enough, the continued political actions based on Rahm Emmanuel's famous line, "You never let a serious crisis go to waste," has generated genuine fear of government infringement of civil rights here in the United States. Since the upper middle class to wealthy so far aren't affected by job loss the way middle and lower class voters have been, a huge disparity in economic impact is exacerbating the situation.

There is a terrible social and economic disconnect between the highly educated classes and everyone else being fully revealed by this. Not only is there no empathy, there is zero sympathy exhibited toward the struggles of the poorer as they suffer economic devastation. Instead, vilification is the order of the day as the lock down turns into an open class struggle.

When people are oscillating from fear of death to fear of losing their homes to fear of having their rights taken away to fear of anyone disagreeing with them, you have truly reached uncertain times. The uncertainty is inescapable, not even through binge streaming television as has become the big thing to do -- with so many trapped at home now.

It's driving people crazy and making them meaner.



Extremes were vogue before COVID-19/Novel Corona Virus/Wuhan Flu/Insert Fad Name Here locked down more than half the planet, but now they are a wee bit more angry than previously -- yeah, hard to believe it could get worse, but it did. So much for pulling together in a crisis, that era is gone in the United States.

The hysteria being promulgated by the media and multiple state governments isn't helping things one whit. Ever moving goal posts are not confidence building nor improving social stability as projection after projection fail to live up to hype. Changing shelter at home's (or whatever verbal variant employed) intention reveals a great deal of dishonesty from authorities.

Remember, flattening had little to do with saving lives as it did with keeping intensive care units from being overwhelmed. Here in Minnesota, models projected we were going to have 50,000 dead by April 10th with shelter at home. A week and a half later on the 21st, only 160 have died in total with half of them 84 and older. That works out to a 0.062 % fatality rate for those tested positive.

That's out of a population estimated to be 5,639,632 in 2019 by the U.S. Census Bureau. So the death's out of all Minnesota residents is 0.0000‭28 %. The number will increase, but won't ever get near shouting distance of one percent.

Yet now being semi-quarantined at home is all about saving many lives if you listen to the news. That is simply a falsehood as the whole point was to delay deaths, not prevent them. Perhaps being honest about that was considered too risky, however it is the reality of such measures. Meanwhile, death statistics have been fudged carefully to inflate them thanks to CDC guidelines that are overly broad. Also an ugly issue is that medical institutions only get full federal funds when a death is ruled to be from COVID-19 and they are desperate for money right now.

More uncertainty is the result of such things.

Adding to the problem is how badly New York has been skewing national statistics. Between the failed leadership there, being a foreign traveler destination, the subways, and living like sardines in a can it has become a dire outlier for both infection and associated death. One size policy does not fit all and Minnesota should not be subject to the same rules as New York City.  So economically punishing sections of the country that aren't as densely populated as Gotham and its neighbors is bound to stir up resentment.

Economic destruction is real and already happening due to small businesses failing along with a dramatic increase in unemployment. Some industries may never recover, such as movie theaters and publishing. Though deaths from economic privation aren't going to be immediately obvious, they will happen in time especially if hospitals fail -- the prospect of should strike you with legitimate fear. Trading off fewer deaths now for more later is not a rational trade off. Time is running out even as it is apparent the curve has been flattened successfully.

As time goes by there is now more uncertainty due to economic woes than infection. Sigh.

While I completely support the spontaneous demonstrations for opening up various states for business again, some things do need to remain shutdown. Given how the vast majority of deaths involve senior citizens in congregated living (is that the most bureaucratic name of all time or what), nursing homes and assisted living need to stay locked down. Mass transit services in large cities need to be completely shutdown including New York City's famous subway system that has been a chief spreader of COVID-19. Hot spots need to continue to be socially limited to without Big Brother levels of  surveillance.

All of this is fraught with, you guessed it, uncertainty, because nothing is guaranteed to succeed. This normal human condition used to be acknowledged, but has somehow becoming taboo to talk about. Much, if not most of the events in our lives aren't controlled directly by us. Accepting that and taking responsibility for what we can control used to be a hallmark of adulthood.

The perpetual adolescence of our society is a liability. From what I remember from my teens, constant uncertainty was a hallmark of that period of growing up. I do not miss it and often wonder why so many desire to be so emotionally arrested.

There may be one silver lining out of all this and that has yet to pass. If extensive antibody testing for COVID-19 is done throughout the States, it would be the biggest accumulation of data on a virus pandemic ever done. For research on spread, infectiousness, and many other factors it would be of great benefit for the future. Understanding of such things is still primitive as the incredibly inaccurate computer models have demonstrated. We need to understand far more than we do when it comes to viruses.

But most of all, we need to stop fearing uncertainty and simply live our lives without crushing fear.