Should We Stay or Should We Go Now?
In the course of a few days, our understanding of the balance of risks regarding the COVID-19 coronavirus has shifted radically. Just a week ago, nearly everyone was thinking about how to maintain daily routines. We were in a phase of bargaining. Looking forward, we saw our regular routines continuing, with a few safety precautions along the way.
We hit the first inflection point of Wednesday, when a series of events started undermining this sense of normalcy: sports leagues canceled seasons; celebrities announced their exposure (if this seems frivolous, consider the impact when Magic Johnson contracted HIV); the President gave a speech so disconnected from reality it caused a stock market crash. Since then, we have had a series of smaller moments that have pushed us to consider the possibility that radical change was about to happen: schools closed, workers stayed home wherever possible, supplies ran short, infections and substantial death counts climbed. We were forced to consider unthinkable numbers: authorities, we learned, calculated that 200 million will be infected in the US with 1-2 million deaths.
Just one personal example of my own evolution. On Monday I was busily scheduling a guest for our next podcast recording (which would have been recorded Thursday). By mid-week I was talking to co-host Patrick and producer Chase Spross about whether it was wise to come into the studio. Now it seems obvious: of course we’re going to cancel. It’s a silly podcast.
The human mind is bad with both big numbers and risk calculation (particularly when they intersect). We’re okay with simple addition, but geometrical/exponential math is hard to fathom. We therefore vastly underestimate how fast a virus can spread through the population, or what to do about it. Two weeks ago, I had an inkling that things were going to be bad for pubs and restaurants if the outbreak here followed the development in South Korea and Italy. I was focused on one kind of risk: the health of small businesses that depend on the small margins of a lot of transactions, and the people who work for them. I saw risk through the lens of collateral consequences.
This is not an incidental concern. The United States has for decades pursued a fairly radical strategy of shifting risk to workers. When retail workers don’t work, they don’t get paid. Many are on the hook for at least a portion of what is usually inadequate health insurance. Few have any savings to speak of. Federal unemployment insurance is tightly-controlled and stingy. If every server, bartender and cook is laid off, twelve million people will be thrown immediately into dire circumstances.
And so as recently as Friday night, Sally and I went to a brewery to try to help local business:
It seemed like the right risk-mitigation strategy, given the consequences to workers of shuttered business. But it is based on a fault of reasoning: a misunderstanding of the exponential nature of spreading disease and the assumption/desperate hope that we could avoid the inevitable mass exposure.
Over the weekend, I had my own scare, with what turned out to be a minor case of chest cold. As I confronted the idea that I might have COVID-19, I looked back on the number of people I’d exposed on that supposedly beneficial trip to Old Town Brewing. I washed my hands before going in and spritzed them with hand sanitizer throughout; we sat at a separate booth away from other people. And yet it was impossible to avoid handling the glassware and silverware, of trading the bill back and forth with our server. As a piece de resistance, I saw owner Adam Milne there and involuntarily hugged him. I was a massive vector.
Since math is hard, it’s worth seeing it visually. Why is the viral spread to millions inevitable? Math. The Washington Post has an absolutely stellar visualization of how this all works, using four models: doing nothing, attempting to contain it (the current US strategy), curtailing some activities, curtailing many. The hard truth is that the only way we avoid the worst outcomes is staying home. The more fastidious we are about it—whether sick or not—the slower the disease will spread and the fewer people will ultimately get sick and die. We can’t stop the spread, but we can slow it and mitigate the most catastrophic consequences.
Deciding to shut down seems drastic, and it’s far from an easy call. Bill de Balsio, the mayor of NYC, decided to keep kids in school last week because so many get fed there. Amid our tattered safety net, school is a major source of basic needs for families (child care, nutrition). I don’t envy anyone who has to make a choice between disease and malnourished kids. (This morning he relented; NYC schools are closed.)
Deciding whether to keep eating/drinking establishments open and patronize them is a similar dilemma. We’re trying to choose between the welfare of workers and disease. (The newly-passed legislation out of Congress has major gaps and won’t help all workers.) In the time of pandemics, all choices are bad.
Except that in both cases I don’t actually think there’s a choice. The math is pretty clear: the virus is going to eventually shut everything down anyway, and so the choice is really between fewer or more cases and deaths. This reality should force Congress to act and help those out of work—but members are still in deep denial about how bad things are going to get. The best thing we can do is deal with a world of closed businesses and direct our efforts to lobbying our representatives to take care of our workers.
I erred going out on Friday. I could have infected several people. I’m not going to make that mistake again—for the next several weeks, I’m going to stay put as long as I can. My guess is that by the end of the week, every brewery/restaurant/pub in the country will be closed as well—and it won’t be long before we’re all staying home as much as we can.
These are very grim times. My tiny human brain is having a hard time calculating how bad things will get. But I think the responsible approach is to try to understand the risks and make the sensible decisions such a recognition demands.
Be safe out there, my friends.
As a note, one thing you can do fairly safely is buying packaged beer directly from your favorite local brewery (the smaller, independent ones need your help the most). They are going to struggle to make it through the next three months. I’ve seen calls to buy gift cards, and that’s helpful, but if you want to keep those brewers in their boots, you need to buy beer. Buying direct from the brewery injects more cash into their bottom line than buying at a grocery store. Most breweries have dock sales, and if it’s not clear how that works, just give them a call. Breweries, begin to make it clear and obvious how people can buy your product. There’s a lot of talk about how craft beer is a community; well, now is the time to come together as one and help each other out.