Coronavirus Response Thoughts
By this point we've run the gamut of just about everything from broad acceptance to blame to conspiracy theories. I suppose just about everyone has given a pass to blaming themselves. Nonetheless, I would wager most of us have seen a wide array of responses by this point.
I'm a bit frustrated with the current situation. But, here is the thing. As I think about it, we haven't performed markedly better than any one else. Nor are we doing particularly worse.
You might scream "but, Hong Kong!". However, I think pretty much everyone reacted comparably.
I'll start by addressing the Hong Kong in the room. We tend to view their reaction as incredible. But, we often overlook the fact that their response hinged on a few things which might have changed the response elsewhere as well. For instance, their capacity for testing and contact tracing. Combine that with a country already prone to taking medical precautions like wearing masks, and which is generally more servile to their government and you wind up in a starkly different environment.
Put another way, at least one part of the success in Hong Kong stems from the fact that it was actually possible to pull it off there. That should be an obvious statement. But, put another way, it wouldn't be possible in North America for example. We don't have the capacity. We couldn't have pulled it off we tried. And, even if we had the capacity, there would likely be much more resistance to the measures required.
All you need to do is look at the protests over the current lock down which isn't even a lock down, and the numerous concerns over privacy violations which a contact tracing app might bring with it.
I have little doubt that the response would have been much more different in Canada if we had the capacity to test and contact trace at the rates done in Hong Kong. Even less doubts if acting wasn't likely to raise questions about the constitutionality of such actions. But, that isn't the world we live in here.
And, it is easy to criticize the US. But I will wager that just about every politician is very glad they aren't the President at the moment. The anti-lock down protests in the US are much bigger than those here. And the restrictions are looser and came later than they came in Canada.
Now, some of that is very likely caused by the inconsistent messaging at differing levels of government. In a similar way as Alberta seems the most anti-lock down in Canada. But, by the time the infection hit, it was already too late to complain about the composition of the various levels of governments. That too is a factor in the environment into which the virus came. You can't wish it away.
On top of this, by and large, most governments are actually investing a lot and taking a lot of risk on this subject. Maybe not as much as some people think. But certainly more than enough. Which tells me that, whatever the motivation, governments do care and are trying to react accordingly.
The simple truth is, it is unlikely much would have changed with different responses. As I said, attempting a Hong Kong style suppression of the virus in a geographically larger space without the same level of resources and where government imposed restrictions are frowned upon was never going to work the same way. In fact, it could have even back fired.
I once watched a social experiment. 100 people were asked to guess the number of gumballs in a jar. Individual guesses were all over the board. But, the average was actually quite close to the real number. Closer than any of the individual guesses.
It was a bit of an eye opener into how large groups can approximate answers to challenging problems. Popular opinion is a lot like these guesses. Given that the circumstances from one place to another vary so differently, it also means that the right answer will likely tend to vary differently as well. Thinking back on that experiment now, I feel like a lot of people governed this way. Timing of the response was largely influenced by when popular opinion would have accepted it. Measures taken were, by and large, the ones which the average person would accept. And so on.
Will this yield the absolute best answer? No. It isn't even guaranteed to be the best answer given each areas constraints. But, there is a reasonable chance that it is in the same ballpark as the right answer.
I'm a bit frustrated with the current situation. But, here is the thing. As I think about it, we haven't performed markedly better than any one else. Nor are we doing particularly worse.
You might scream "but, Hong Kong!". However, I think pretty much everyone reacted comparably.
I'll start by addressing the Hong Kong in the room. We tend to view their reaction as incredible. But, we often overlook the fact that their response hinged on a few things which might have changed the response elsewhere as well. For instance, their capacity for testing and contact tracing. Combine that with a country already prone to taking medical precautions like wearing masks, and which is generally more servile to their government and you wind up in a starkly different environment.
Put another way, at least one part of the success in Hong Kong stems from the fact that it was actually possible to pull it off there. That should be an obvious statement. But, put another way, it wouldn't be possible in North America for example. We don't have the capacity. We couldn't have pulled it off we tried. And, even if we had the capacity, there would likely be much more resistance to the measures required.
All you need to do is look at the protests over the current lock down which isn't even a lock down, and the numerous concerns over privacy violations which a contact tracing app might bring with it.
I have little doubt that the response would have been much more different in Canada if we had the capacity to test and contact trace at the rates done in Hong Kong. Even less doubts if acting wasn't likely to raise questions about the constitutionality of such actions. But, that isn't the world we live in here.
And, it is easy to criticize the US. But I will wager that just about every politician is very glad they aren't the President at the moment. The anti-lock down protests in the US are much bigger than those here. And the restrictions are looser and came later than they came in Canada.
Now, some of that is very likely caused by the inconsistent messaging at differing levels of government. In a similar way as Alberta seems the most anti-lock down in Canada. But, by the time the infection hit, it was already too late to complain about the composition of the various levels of governments. That too is a factor in the environment into which the virus came. You can't wish it away.
On top of this, by and large, most governments are actually investing a lot and taking a lot of risk on this subject. Maybe not as much as some people think. But certainly more than enough. Which tells me that, whatever the motivation, governments do care and are trying to react accordingly.
The simple truth is, it is unlikely much would have changed with different responses. As I said, attempting a Hong Kong style suppression of the virus in a geographically larger space without the same level of resources and where government imposed restrictions are frowned upon was never going to work the same way. In fact, it could have even back fired.
I once watched a social experiment. 100 people were asked to guess the number of gumballs in a jar. Individual guesses were all over the board. But, the average was actually quite close to the real number. Closer than any of the individual guesses.
It was a bit of an eye opener into how large groups can approximate answers to challenging problems. Popular opinion is a lot like these guesses. Given that the circumstances from one place to another vary so differently, it also means that the right answer will likely tend to vary differently as well. Thinking back on that experiment now, I feel like a lot of people governed this way. Timing of the response was largely influenced by when popular opinion would have accepted it. Measures taken were, by and large, the ones which the average person would accept. And so on.
Will this yield the absolute best answer? No. It isn't even guaranteed to be the best answer given each areas constraints. But, there is a reasonable chance that it is in the same ballpark as the right answer.
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