Rhyme or Reason: Responses to the Pandemic

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Daniel Defoe's classic novel "Journal of the Plague Year" based on the experience of London in 1665 details the understandable but often irrational behavior of both leaders and citizens coming to terms with the deadly epidemic sweeping the City during that year in which London lost between 14 and 21 percent of its population.

Image from the Great London Plague of 1665

Credit: Science Source

First came the very human response of denial: surely this will pass swiftly; perhaps it is limited to very few people or certain regions of the city; perhaps it can be contained; perhaps when the weather warms it will magically vanish; perhaps prayer will help.


Then distortion of the data soon followed to support these theories. As bodies piled up or were carted away, records were altered to attribute the deaths to other, more usual, acceptable, or even invented causes. Naturally, those responsible for affected districts sought to avoid the blame or opprobrium of being associated with the disease, and thus reported these false accounts to their superiors.

As in every case we know of from ancient Rome, to Europe in the Middle Ages, to modern-day China, actual facts about a growing epidemic, no matter how tightly controlled by the authorities, will be leaked to the general public, with predictable responses. Spreading like wildfire, often blowing limited or incomplete bits of information completely out of context, rumors themselves contribute to the impact of the contagion.

One all-too-human tendency inevitably leads down the path of stigmatizing easy-to-identify 'others' as the source. Another is the search for quick cures: rituals, signs or amulets to ward off the illness; or in other cases the promotion of folk-medicines or sometimes dangerous potions claimed by others to heal the sick.

From the perspective of authorities anxious to avoid challenges to their power, the next step is often to portray the disease and disaster as emanating from foreign sources, both external and internal. During the Antonine smallpox plague in ancient Rome, Christians were portrayed as the disease's source since they refused to serve the Roman Gods. During the Middle Ages in Europe, popular fear and anger during the scourge of the Black Death was directed against the Jews who were charged with and often murdered for poisoning the wells regardless of the fact that they drank the same water and often suffered from the same diseases.

If all this sounds familiar in the age of Covid-19, it should. But in this twenty-first century, we all should know better. Plagues and pandemics, despite President Trump's declarations, do not "magically go away by April;" nor are they "hoaxes" concocted by political enemies; or malicious evils carried by immigrants or sent by rival powers; nor can they be cured by untested potions, wishes or by "injecting disinfectants."


"History does not repeat itself, But it does rhyme," Mark Twain is alleged to have said.

In an age defined by science and deep medical knowledge, not myth, mystery and ignorance, isn't it time for us to finally bring the rhyme scheme up to date? A few nations, including Australia, New Zealand and South Korea are applying science and expertise to defeat our current plague. Can we do the same?

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Les Adler

ONE MILLION CASES AND GROWING FAST

The official count of coronavirus or COVID-19 cases passed one million worldwide early today (4/2/20).** But that number is already out of date, since the count is growing by at least 70,000 per day. As I write this in the late afternoon, 20,000 more people have been diagnosed, and 6,000 have died. That's just today.

Wall Street in lockdown

(along with Main Street)

Credit: Dan Nguyen/Flickr

Tragically, the US is number one among the nations on this statistic.  Despite having less than 5 percent of the world's population, we've incurred nearly 25 percent of the COVID-19 cases, and 11 percent of the deaths. (One day after this posting, the US sped past a grim milestone--1000 COVID-19 deaths in a day).

Many factors are contributing to our unfortunate leadership in this area. Our healthcare system is focused on providing top-quality care to people who are well off or well insured, but lacks a comparable commitment to public health, In response to a problem that requires a  quick, coordinated, disciplined response, and a response that requires personal sacrifice, our national love of individualism and our more recent Ayn Randian valuation of putting oneself first certainly contributed.

Still, if we're going to assign responsibility for where we are today, an awful lot needs to go to our tweeter-in-chief, Donald Trump. As anyone whose memory has not been wiped clean by the Ministry of Truth knows. Trump treated the looming pandemic as--take your choice--a hoax, a Democrat scheme to discredit him, just like impeachment; as a threat to his re-election; as something totally under control; as an ordinary, relatively trivial event, like the flu; as another reason to close borders; as something that could be cleared away by Easter, and, even if it risked thousands of deaths, should not be allowed to upset the economy. With his narcissistic, impulsive and erratic leadership, the US was ill prepared, slow to respond, and still extremely spotty in dealing with this grave crisis.

By the way, the fact that even as thousands of Americans die every day--deaths that could have been prevented by prompt and well-informed leadership, Trump's approval ratings are approaching 50 percent suggests that the Ministry of Truth* is doing a bang-up job.

The big question is how we proceed from here. The US is still at the beginning of the epidemic. Nothing that we've done so far in the US has "flattened the curve." Instead, COVID-19 cases in the US are on a steeply rising exponential trajectory.  Experts tell us that social distancing--staying at home and avoiding as many contacts with other people as possible-- is crucial. So is hand washing. If everyone, sick, possibly sick or well, wears a face mask in public, that may help.

A separate, perhaps more crucial factor is testing as many people as possible in order to isolate people who are shedding the virus, along with tracking and isolating their contacts. Where this has been done, for example in South Korea, it has controlled the spread of the virus without shutting down the country, businesses and the economy. Again, unfortunately, the US lags far, far behind on testing.

What lies ahead is in our hands. A swift, strong, coordinated, nationwide attack on the virus can still save thousands or perhaps even hundreds of thousands of live. The two key questions are:

Will enough Americans wake up and do what's needed, or will half of them remain in the dark and asleep even as the plague surges towards them?

Will government, starting with Trump, get its act together, and in time?

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* For another example of Trump's Ministry of Truth revising history as we speak, click here.

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** The number of cases worldwide passed two million on 4/15/20. In other words, the global doubling time for the virus is around 13 days. We'll see if the enormous sacrifices that nations and individuals are making are making a difference. When will we suffer 4,000,000 cases?

REA

WHAT IF WE HAD A SOCIOPATHIC NARCISSISTIC AS PRESIDENT IN A TIME OF CRISIS?

If, God forbid, we had a sociopathic narcissist as President of the United States in a time of grave crisis, we might get a tweet like this:

Donald J. Trump

@realDonaldTrump

The LameStream Media is the dominant force in trying to get me to keep our Country closed as long as possible in the hope that it will be detrimental to my election success. The real people want to get back to work ASAP. We will be stronger than ever before!

As usual with Trump's tweets, there's a huge amount of nastiness, divisiveness, us-vs-them-ism, and a whopper or two to unpack. However, let's just focus on ". . . in the hope that it will be detrimental to my election success."

In other words, what we do about the coronavirus pandemic should be determined by how it might impact him. That is pure narcissism.

Epidemiologists--experts who devote their lives to studying, understanding and modeling epidemics and pandemics--tell us that stringent steps now can beat this virus down to a manageable level in a month or two--as the Chinese and a few other countries have managed to do. That would allow our health system to continue to function, and researchers to develop treatments or a vaccine. This difficult-but-necessary choice might mean thousands of deaths in the US.

They also tell us that getting everyone back to work or "back to church" prematurely will let the virus expand exponentially. This is a concept Trump doesn't and probably can't understand, but maybe some of his followers can. Exponential means that today's 75,000 cases and 1000 deaths in a few months could be multiplied not by 10 or 100 or 1000, but possibly by 10,000. That's right, unleashed to rage unchecked through the US population, this coronavirus could kill 10,000,000 people.

You don't have to believe me. You can research this for yourself in these two crystal-clear articles:

https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca

https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-the-hammer-and-the-dance-be9337092b56

Any normal person faced with the choice between his own needs and the potential death of millions of people would put all those lives first. But a sociopath wouldn't. Much less a sociopathic narcissist.

But we'd never elect someone like that as President. And even if we did, sensible people, the "adults in the room," would step in to protect us. After all, we have the Constitution, Congress and the  Courts--all those carefully crafted checks and balances--to save us. Right?

Right?

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REA