Day 34. Wednesday. Optimism of a sort.
I did go for a walk today (three walkers, one jogger with orange hand weights that I think I've seen before, no dogs). But that isn't what I want to write about. Not that anyone is reading this blog.
The politicians, media, and experts (mostly the self-appointed ones) have swung over to talking about when to re-open. John Cochrane is grumpily pointing out that jobs which don't require close contact (less than 2 metres) can in fact be resumed without much danger. Everyone else is pointing to the need for more testing, and I don't think even Cochrane would disagree. What matters most is what the politicians are saying.
Seriously; honest, guv. Why do I think so?
A politician's main talent is to understand what the people want. I could go on working from home indefinitely, but the lesson I take from what I'm reading today is that plenty of people have had enough of this and so politicians have decided to give them some hope. This lesson also echoes what one pundit is saying: when to end the lockdown is not a free choice the way epidemiologists would like it to be, because eventually many people will go broke and some will go crazy. If this were allowed to happen, it would do serious damage; CoViD-19 is not the only threat in the air.
In a way, this is pretty basic psychology. As you can see from the title of this post, I've been staying at home for more than a month, and many people have been at home almost that long. People want to see some return on their sacrifice, and watching the charts flatten out may be gratifying enough for me, but for them, something more tangible would help. If there are rewards -- maybe not very generous, maybe not to everybody (as long as plausible reasons are given) -- then further sacrifice becomes easier to bear.
For all of that, I can't get over that story about a party in Bakersfield with two hundred people. What were they thinking?
Hospital cases are down for the county and the state. Rates of new cases are declining for the state, USA, UK, and world as a whole. OK, for the UK they would still seem to be rising gently if there had not been so many last Friday. Even the usually pessimistic chart kept by the NYT shows and eight-day doubling time for both USA and UK. Counts of active cases are not yet declining, so hospitals still have to worry (especially if they are low on equipment or supplies), but the suppression campaign seems to be effective. Which is to say that there is now little need to tighten restrictions, and probably room to either adjust them based on what we have found out, or even loosen them. I've read of a study suggesting that transmission by airborne droplets is much more important than transmission by contaminated surfaces. It may be right or wrong, but if we can become confident of such findings, we can use them.
Provided, that is, that the aforesaid politicians pay attention to real science and the Russian disinformation campaign doesn't get too much traction. Michael Gove's famous remark about experts had better be wrong and stay wrong.
The politicians, media, and experts (mostly the self-appointed ones) have swung over to talking about when to re-open. John Cochrane is grumpily pointing out that jobs which don't require close contact (less than 2 metres) can in fact be resumed without much danger. Everyone else is pointing to the need for more testing, and I don't think even Cochrane would disagree. What matters most is what the politicians are saying.
Seriously; honest, guv. Why do I think so?
A politician's main talent is to understand what the people want. I could go on working from home indefinitely, but the lesson I take from what I'm reading today is that plenty of people have had enough of this and so politicians have decided to give them some hope. This lesson also echoes what one pundit is saying: when to end the lockdown is not a free choice the way epidemiologists would like it to be, because eventually many people will go broke and some will go crazy. If this were allowed to happen, it would do serious damage; CoViD-19 is not the only threat in the air.
In a way, this is pretty basic psychology. As you can see from the title of this post, I've been staying at home for more than a month, and many people have been at home almost that long. People want to see some return on their sacrifice, and watching the charts flatten out may be gratifying enough for me, but for them, something more tangible would help. If there are rewards -- maybe not very generous, maybe not to everybody (as long as plausible reasons are given) -- then further sacrifice becomes easier to bear.
For all of that, I can't get over that story about a party in Bakersfield with two hundred people. What were they thinking?
Hospital cases are down for the county and the state. Rates of new cases are declining for the state, USA, UK, and world as a whole. OK, for the UK they would still seem to be rising gently if there had not been so many last Friday. Even the usually pessimistic chart kept by the NYT shows and eight-day doubling time for both USA and UK. Counts of active cases are not yet declining, so hospitals still have to worry (especially if they are low on equipment or supplies), but the suppression campaign seems to be effective. Which is to say that there is now little need to tighten restrictions, and probably room to either adjust them based on what we have found out, or even loosen them. I've read of a study suggesting that transmission by airborne droplets is much more important than transmission by contaminated surfaces. It may be right or wrong, but if we can become confident of such findings, we can use them.
Provided, that is, that the aforesaid politicians pay attention to real science and the Russian disinformation campaign doesn't get too much traction. Michael Gove's famous remark about experts had better be wrong and stay wrong.
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