Six Months of COVID

It’s been six months since I first wrote the word Coronavirus on this blog. Six disturbing, unprecedented months. The sum total of inaccurate predictions about COVID made by very smart people in this country has been staggering. Almost all of us, smart or not, have been spectacularly wrong about everything from how long it would last, how many people it would infect and how many would perish. Wrong. Consistently wrong. The World Health Organization, the Center For Disease Control, and politicians from Bill de Blasio to Donald Trump...wrong. In six months we have been told that mask wearing did little to protect against the virus, only to see mask wearing become ubiquitous as well as a symbol of both virtue and rebellion. Almost weekly some new development shakes our understanding of the thing, and calls into question past assumptions, leaving all of us feeling battered by conflicting and inscrutable data. Some point to the constantly changing official narratives as evidence of some grand conspiracy on the part of either Donald Trump or the Democratic Party to advance nefarious unarticulated agendas. I propose a different interpretation for all of the tumult.

Has the government response been a third world dumpster fire of incompetence? Yes. Has some of the incompetence been intentional and politically motivated? Probably. But incompetence and treachery should to a certain extent be expected when you’re dealing with A. An unprecedented pandemic and B. Politicians who have long traded in the currency of treachery. A better explanation of the constantly changing narrative has to do with the fact that every single day of this fight we are learning something new. Right now, not just here but all around the world, the very best minds on Earth are working on the science of COVID 24/7. Doctors, scientists, researchers, pharmaceutical companies, think tanks, universities, all delving into the nuts and bolts of this virus, scrambling for a vaccine and in the process, the universe of knowledge about COVID-19 continues to expand daily. With all of this brain power, money and institutional focus, we are discovering that earlier information we thought to be true was not true. This isn’t the result of some convoluted Rube Goldberg conspiracy, rather, its the result of the scientific method of trial and error yielding new information. What do you do when you obtain new information that calls into question what you thought to be true in the past? Hopefully, you use this new information to make smarter decisions going forward. Or...you could just say, “what the hell? I’ll just keep doing things the way I’ve always done them.” I personally expect the government to adapt to this new information, even if it means contradicting a previous position. Heck...especially if it means contradicting a previous position. That’s not weakness, that’s simple intelligence.  

So, hearing one thing from leaders one week and something else a couple weeks later might be frustrating and confusing, but it’s the nature of what we are up against. For someone like me, who instinctively distrusts politicians of all stripes, this has been a very difficult six months. It has taken much effort for me to guard against easy cynicism. But there’s nothing easier or quite as intellectually lazy as the false comfort of conspiracy theories. If something goes terribly wrong in the world it’s so much easier to blame it on your political enemies, even with thinly sourced and unverifiable plots undertaken by some shadowy confederacy of dunces on the other side of the aisle. It’s far harder and much less emotionally reassuring to acknowledge that highly contagious and deadly viruses are complex and devilishly difficult to overcome quickly and painlessly. 

So, I’ll wear the mask. I’ll try to socially distance myself from those outside of my circle. I’ll wash my fingers to the bone and use hand sanitizer whenever appropriate...right up until the moment I’m told that new and credible information is available that says these things are unnecessary. What’s credible? I would say, scientifically tested and peer reviewed data produced by someone other than the Daily Kos or World News Daily.