As I begin this essay, on 14 March 2020, we are in the midst of the unfolding COVID-19 pandemic. Over the last few weeks, we’ve seen the stock market dive 30% over a two-fold uncertainty—uncertainty over the health impact of the virus and its global economic impact. Every day we’ve been treated to numerous press conferences from all levels of government as well as a string of breathless announcements from the press about shut downs, shut ins and near constant significant news updates. I live in what has quickly become the “hot spot” of cases in Pennsylvania, resulting in a near total shut down of business and civic activities, as well as run on toilet paper that I just don’t understand.
As we have watched sections of China, then South Korea, then Iran, then Italy, then Spain spike in cases and undertake draconian measures to slow the spread of the virus, I have gotten increasingly queasy about the probability that we, the US, are next. As testing becomes more available, the number of known cases of infection is going to shoot up and panic will only increase. Being a bit of a history buff, I am drawn to discussions of what History can teach us. As expected, there has been no shortage of parallels drawn with past events. There’s the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918; more recent “novel” virus outbreaks likes SARS, MERS, Swine Flu, Ebola; and, of course, comparisons to how previous administrations have handled a range of crises.
One must choose ones sources carefully, however, when using history to inform our present thinking. A friend of mine recently turned me onto the daily blog of Heather Cox Richardson, a political historian and professor of history at Boston College. I knew I’d like her when I read the “About” page on her blog, linked to above, in which she uses one of my favorite quotes: “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.” This quote, attributed to Mark Twain, reminds us that we can learn from history—but we must be careful to remember that circumstances never completely replicate themselves. You must put the lessons of history in critical context with today’s situation. Prof. Richardson brings in many lessons from the past in her daily review of events, which can be comforting or frightening depending on the situation. Her writing has also driven me to think about something else: the difficulty of putting today’s events into any confident context while events are still unfolding.
This situation allows me to use an excerpt I’ve been saving from Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America. From the moment I read this paragraph, and underlined it, I knew there would be an essay in which I could use it! It is one of those passages that you read and think, “Wow, that is so true! But I’ve never thought about it that way before!” Herewith, that selection:
“Turned wrong way round, the relentless unforeseen was what we schoolchildren studied as “History,” harmless history, where everything unexpected in its own time is chronicled on the page as inevitable. The terror of the unforeseen is what the science of history hides, turning disaster into an epic.”
I have now lived long enough to see how crazy current events are treated by historical retrospection. I remember the chaos of the morning of 9/11/2001. We did not know or understand from one minute to the next what was happening! We just stood in front of the TV at work, numbly watching the horrific scene, reeling as information came pouring in over time. Over the succeeding weeks, months and years, a lot came to light about what led up to that horrible day as well as decisions that were made afterwards. Whenever there is temptation to yell, “How could they NOT have seen that?!” or “How could they have made THAT decision?!” I try to remember the chaos, confusion and utter helplessness of that day and time. It’s easy to look backward and calmly put the pieces together. When you are going through it, though, nothing is clear.
Part of what makes us nuts right now is constant “arm chair quarterbacking” about whether or not this crisis is being handled appropriately—or even whether or not it is a crisis at all. I have another “crisis memory”—the years leading up to 2000, forever referred to as Y2K. Most of my readers will remember this time, but a few may be too young. The concern was that the date in most computer code in everything from banking to control of the electrical grid was expressed with two digits for the year. What would happen to time- and date-dependent tasks when the year rolled from 99 to 00? Visions of a digital Armageddon circulated for a few years as companies pumped millions of dollars into analyzing and updating code to use a four digit year within dates. Come January 1, 2000, there were some small blips but no major crises. IMMEDIATELY there were pundits saying that this “crisis” was way overblown and millions of dollars were wasted. However, maybe crisis was averted because we invested so much time and money.
We can’t run the appropriate control experiment to know for sure. Just like we can’t go back and NOT implement Roosevelt’s New Deal, or NOT implement the plans the Obama administration executed in response to the Great Recession. We cannot say for sure that a different course of action would have had a better or worse result. Not that that stops pundits from trying. And it’s very easy to cherry pick historical information to support your thesis, extrapolating from kernels of truth to assumptions that are risky at best and outright wrong at worst.
So what do we do during a time of uncertainty such as we find ourselves in today? Well, here is what I’d like to see from others and what I try to hold to myself. First, always try to remember at any given point in time what you know, what you don’t know, and if possible what you don’t know you don’t know. And remember that there is a time vector to information—what you know changes constantly, including false information that pops up only to be corrected later. Because of this ever-changing information environment, stay humble and be transparent. State what you know and what you don’t. Explain what information you have used to arrive at your conclusions and actions. You can express competence (if you are in a visible role) without saying you have everything under control. And for goodness sakes, don’t promise what you can’t deliver.
Second, remember that actions and opinions can and will change as more information becomes available. Stay open to changing your position based on new data and own that change. It is not a failing to change your position based on new information. It is also not unreasonable to prepare for the worst while hoping for the best. It IS unreasonable to lose sight of facts and go overboard about protecting yourself to the detriment of others. If you need to stockpile 96 rolls of toilet paper for a possible 2-4 week quarantine, I think you have other issues.
Third, give yourself and others some grace. We all have different situations, different risk tolerances and different experiences that may cause us to make different decisions. But remember, also, how actions will affect others. If schools are shut down, remember that there are kids who depend on school lunches and breakfasts. If small businesses close, remember that many hourly employees will end up going without a paycheck—and these are often the people who can least afford to miss one. Think actions through and mitigate impact. If your tolerance for risk is high, remember those around you who may be immunocompromised or have to tend to someone who is in a high risk group. Don’t belittle someone else’s fear; don’t sneer at someone else’s unconcern.
When this is all said and done and history has had its say, it is certain that some decisions will have been wrong and some will have been right. Some of them may have just been dumb luck considering how little was known at the time. Don’t heap blame or praise on the decisions themselves. Focus on the decision process itself: how was information gathered and how were decisions made? How quickly did response change based on new knowledge? How well was information communicated? We can learn a lot more from that than on our opinions about whether or not the decisions were “good”.
Take a deep breath. Focus on the bigger picture. And be safe out there!
I think the comments on 9/11 are appropriate. Would be nice if this virus brought together the country instead of further tearing it apart. Age does have an advantage as understanding that much of life is unexpected.
Thanks for a thoughtful blog!
Sherri-
Hope all is going well for you. Do you remember when Johnny Carson made a joke- It might have been as early as the gasoline shortages, about a toilet paper shortage. The country went wild and the shelves were empty. In my trips to Russia in the late 1980s, there was a big shortage of paper, of all kinds- Now this is the absolute truth, to the side of the toilets, there were wire baskets, with torn sheets of the Pravda present for their final and best use.
Wanted to make a comment about risk. During my early years at AP my major activity was investigating a number of accidents including deaths, both supporting changes in design practice but also supporting litigation. I was part of the first Hazard Review, it was at New Orleans and we ended up getting out of the Ammonia business because of the results. I was also the first promoter within the company of doing quantitative risk, and did the first one we ever did. The results were alarming and again changed our practice. When you start to do quantitative risk, the next question is what risk is acceptable. I just heard the governor of New York pontificating that all life was important and we should never allow any needless deaths. Of course this makes sense, but also unrealistic since in reality we all make risk/reward decisions every day.
The Dutch were the world leaders during the late 1970s in establishing acceptable risk standards for process hazards that could impact the public. Although our company’s standards were established at the highest levels in the company (well above me since I was but a boy at the time), understanding the logic that went into these thoughts was very insightful. There were several basic principles that evolved. 1) It is important to understand the level of risk society will except. For guidance, we used the risk of lighting striking your home. This is a tragic event, but very rare and people in general do not spend the modest amount of money to install a lightning rod and they accept the risk as tolerable. 2) when looking at investments to mitigate risk, typically you get a lot of risk reduction for a modest investment and then the investments get very large for almost a negligible further decrease in risk. This on a plot looks like a knee. Its good to know where the knee is and make sure you do at least the items which have substantial benefit with reasonable cost. 3) The risk to third parties is dependent upon lot of issues and ultimately must be decided at the highest levels.
Does this mean anything in our current world-wide crisis with coronavirus. Although no one wants to see any deaths from this decease, eventually the world needs to return eventually to some level of normalcy and society will accept some risk to promote a balance between peoples physical health and a measure of financial stability. What specific standard to use is as yet unknown, but some examples of the tradeoffs accepted by societies exist. There is still some air pollution and some people unfortunately die from it. Another example is water quality. For about 100 billion dollars, all the drinking water could be purified but societies in some portions of the world do not fund this effort and today 25% of the world still drink polluted water and there are 2 million deaths each year from this practice, and there are many others. This is a complicated problem, my point is, however, a tradeoff between continued impact of the coronavirus and world-wide financial stability is rational and absolutes are unrealistic. Another takeaway is that all countries need to definitely do the rational and obvious stuff to limit the progression of this decease, including all PPE, rapidly acquire the necessary ventilators (but this will take some time), wash hands, only slowly change personal space standards, etc. Finally, the decisions of how to adjust, accept some increase in risk to allow the economy to recover somewhat is a decision at the highest level.
Just some thoughts for you during these difficult times.
Take care,
Doug
Doug,
Thanks for this insightful reply! You edge up against some issues with actuarial analysis that are important to discuss and difficult to swallow. I’ll build on your comments by noting that while reasonable tradeoffs MUST be made, we need to pay particular attention to who has a voice in determining which tradeoffs are acceptable. Unfortunately, those with the least voice are the ones who usually end up on the short end of the stick when it comes to those tradeoffs and can afford it the least. Those of us with a voice must make it a priority to make sure that those with little voice are spoken for.
Sherri
To both Sherri and Brian-
I agree with both of you that those without have little part in decisions that impact them greatly. In theory, the way all are supposed to give their input is through their vote. At least in a democracy.
It’s interesting to see how societies respond to important issues. I was listening to an MD from a big hospital in Queens, which as of April 2, was desperately pleading for more ventilators. Those who leave in his area are poor, and he was making the point that he anticipated the death rate from the virus was going to be high because of their poor diet and that smoking in this area was significant. His plea was largely to the New York Governor who had 4,000 ventilators in storage. The MD was told that the Governor wanted to keep this supply for the pandemic’s apex. Apparently Governor Cuomo, a very liberal and I think honorable politician, wants to assure a fair distribution of the limited ventilators in his control rather than distribute them to just one region of New York. The interesting observation is that Cuomo, in his request for ventilators from the Federals government, is getting exactly the same response from the Feds who don’t want to release all the ventilators in their control to just New York. What happens over the next four weeks in these life and death decisions when resources are limited will be an interesting test.
The larger issue is how societies respond to large problems. The water quality issue is an excellent example. The world’s cities, even the rich cities, in the later 1800’s had a very real problem with many deaths attributable to the “filth diseases”. Much of this came from the large migration of people from rural areas to cities as part of the industrial revolution. There was no real solution to this problem until activated sludge technology was developed in 1910. The solutions proposed before this were both expensive and would not have solved the problem and society did very little other than collect the waste and put it into rivers and the ocean. It was not solved within the United States until the 1980s when the U.S. government spend almost $200 billion to solve it. This is 100 years after the acuteness of the problem was well understood and 70 years after the technology had been invented. Yet, even today, 25% of the world’s population does not have clean water and 2 million still die from the “filth diseases”.
Of course the question is why does it take so long for our world-wide society to solve such large-scale problems when the technology exists and all these people are going to die each year. Back to the coronavirus, why is the world going to loose perhaps 2 million people this year because collectively, the world was not prepared for this disaster.
The reason is that the world has many such potential problems and ultimately no one can see the future with enough confidence to allocate substantial funds to only a few potential problems before the event occurs. The world has lots of problems, important things to do and limited resources unless there is a catastrophe.
This will be true for global warming. In this case, we all know it will eventually become a real problem, with sever consequences, but still decades away. Yes, it could be addressed with very substantial funding early on, but there are other more pressing problems, also with substantial ramifications. This coronavirus problem will take 2 million lives world-wide and $10 trillion dollars to battle, 50% coming from the United States, and the consequences will be over the next three months, not in 50 years on the delta’s of India and Bangladesh.
Societies ultimately have limited resources and societies spend their monies in rank order on, solving a immediate crisis (pandemics or wars), shorter-term goals that are believed to improve prosperity (roadways, airports, soccer and football fields, education, housing), and finally on on big environmental problems with potentially high impact, for example water quality 100 years ago or global warming today.
This is not my prediction, it is just my observation of how societies respond to events.
I’ll make a few more comments about politicians. My son is in the politian business, and I love him dearly, but have little respect for most politicians. Most of the honorable ones are leaving Washington, many of those who are staying are either trying to maintain their political power or increase their political power. Although their statements are more respectful of the needs of their constituents, their actions are almost all driven at power brokering and control. Returning to the start of this note and the hospital in Queens that is begging for ventilators and other equipment, why is AOC, who represents the Queens and Bronx areas, focusing her career on the New Green Deal and not the health-supporting organizations in her part of New York City? Perhaps, Sherri and Brian, as you suggested, the poor in Queens have little clout and AOC, as most politicians, is trying to grasp as much power from the power brokers as she can. I think she could run for President in 2028, and she knows it.
Good luck to us all as we get through this pandemic, which most of us will.
Doug,
Well said. When I took economics of government in college, there as a great example. Why do food stamps exist? Those needing them would prefer money and decide how to spend for the family. Food stamps are for those paying the taxes to understand what that money is going for and can’t be used for other things including drugs.
Also, global warming is not a decades away problem. I have seen in Fort Lauderdale and Tybee Island GA high tides coming up through the grates on streets causing floods regularly that were very very rare years ago. The warming is creating problems now, and honestly addressing it will improve lives now as well.
Brian
Brian-
We have a home on Nantucket, an island of course, and I am concerned about the increase in sea level. I too have been aware of ever increasing flooding.
I just finished writing a book on the history of Nantucket from 1850 to 1920, the time from a complete change of the principle business of Nantucket from the whaling capital of the world (Melville) to a vacation mecca. During my research I read almost all local papers from about 1820 to 1920. I was amazed at the many storms and flooding throughout this time frame. At times the floods covered the wharves by feet and went extensively into town. A conclusion was that my observations of much increased current flooding during my seven decades of summers on the island might not be correct and perhaps there is not that much difference in my experience and those who lived on Nantucket in the last century.
I dug into the measurement of sea level rise. It turns out it is a very difficult measurement, for a variety of reasons, but because of the importance NASA developed satellite based techniques to measure the increase in sea level. The NASA results and results from modelling have been studied by the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), a United Nations group of 195 scientists supported by the work of several thousand technical specialists from throughout the world. This organization’s goal is to provide high quality, fact based analyses if the consequences of global warming and is well respected in their field. I also went to some of technical articles supporting their general conclusions. Surprising to me, the NASA satellite results indicate that the sea level rise between 1990 and 2010 was only two inches. There appears to be little challenge to NASA’s findings. There is no doubt that global warming will both increase storm strength and also sea level depth, but most of this is still in our future. There are many assumptions needed to predict sea level rise in the future. Mathematical modelers have tuned their assumptions to the NASA data and their calculations indicate a sea level rise by 2100 of about two feet. Other assumptions, not based on the actual data indicate perhaps a maximum of four or so feet by 2100. This is significant, but unless you live on a rivers delta is not catastrophic.
Weather is weather and climate change is climate change and they can and are often confused. There is no doubt that the consequences of Climate Change will be significant and costly, both to mitigate the consequences in communities and regions where it is feasible, and also result in migrations of millions from lowlands. The timeframe, however, is not a decade or two, the consequences are off in the future and the unborn can not yet vote, but will realize the real challenges of climate change.
This supports the notion that drastic and expensive actions to curtail climate change will not be supported by our world-wide society, but instead mitigation of the consequences will be the primary thrust of investment this century. Actions driven by economics with some attention to CO@ abatement will, however, be carried out. The fleet of coal plants that still generate 20% of the electricity in the U.S. averages 39 years old and are nearing obsolescence, these will be replaced over the next two decades. There will also be other changes, but much of climate change will continue because of how societies spend their limited funds.
Tried to respond earlier, but I don’t think it took.
We have a home on Nantucket Island and I too have been alarmed with the increasing flooding I attributed to sea level rise. I further investigated. I recently wrote a history of Nantucket from 1850 to 1920. Through my research I read most copies of the local weekly paper from about 1820 to 1920. There were many wicked storms and flooding that occurred during this timeframe making my observations over the last several decades of more flooding questionable. Further research identified NASA satellite studies of sea level rise, required because such a measurement on land is very difficult. Their data is widely praised and showed that from 1990 to2010, the total rise in sea level was but 2 inches and could not explain increase flooding. The United Nations scientific body (~190 scientists with 5,000 others worldwide supporting this work) did modelling for sea level rise to 2100. Assumptions are the key to any projection. The assumptions that best described the NASA data indicated about a two foot rise by 2100. Other more aggressive assumptions suggested perhaps four feet. Certainly significant but not catastrophic, for example challenge the survival of humans.
If these predictions are accurate, global warming will certainly have a major impact but substantial climate change flooding is still decades away. Increased strength of storms and changes in weather patterns may be the most effected. No doubt societies will be doing a lot of mitigation as well as population migration from some of the lowlands will be needed.
With a gradual revelation of consequences, substantial (and expensive) remedial actions by the world’s societies will be deferred until the consequences become more alarming. This means that the problem will be addressed over a time frame of at least a century- just as the timeframe for achieving clean water. Low hanging fruit, however, will receive attention. For example the remaining U.S. coal-fired electricity generating plants have an average age of 39 years. These will be replaced, most likely by 2050. Big issue is whether they will be replaced with natural gas fired plants or with windmills/solar. The full life-cycle of windmills and solar plants has environmental issues and of course load dependency on weather conditions. Battery storage has great pricing problems and potentially very bad environmental problems. Difficult choices, but increased natural gas plants are likely, with some increase in wind/solar.
The major problem with CO2 emissions is worldwide population growth which currently exceeds 1% annually and will double the world population by 2100. Population growth and the desire for poor societies to improve their prosperity, which ultimately drives world-wide energy consumption up, will likely have a major impact on total CO2 production and will likely exceed any reduction in the currently more prosperous countries. Net result is high greenhouse gas production will continue to grow even with major remedial programs.
Doug,
It is easy at a macro level to understand much of what you say is correct.
That said, most people on this planet given a choice would choose clean water, and this is a serious health issue. Many of those that don’t have clean water do not have the means or the choice. Don’t have to take my word on the impact of lack of clean water, https://www.gatesfoundation.org/what-we-do/global-growth-and-opportunity/water-sanitation-and-hygiene .
If you think people wouldn’t choose clean water look at our country. People spend millions to bring bottled water and add filters to their homes where we already have mostly clean water coming from our municipalities.
I agree with Sherri. When others are determining what is the right level of risk for others those that get left out of those discussions tend to be the weak, the poor, and minorities that either don’t have a public voice or don’t vote.
There are numbers of bad events in history where the majority has decided what risk is acceptable and have taken to blame others. Look at the backlash in this country against those of Chinese heritage who are being blamed or shunned because of this virus.
Determining acceptable risk and the cost to mitigate that risk at a societal level would be a great effort that I think will take longer than I will be on this earth, but hopefully this virus will open all of our eyes that we are all in this together whether rich or poor.
Brian