pandemic

It was like a whole library burned down

Laurie Anderson on the album Bright Red sings that when her father died, it was like a whole library had burned down.

When a library burns, it is a loss for the whole community. The Eckhart Public Library was burned by an arsonist in 2017. It had an awesome collection of resources that were gone overnight. At first, the hope was that some of the more valuable books could be cleaned and rescued but that wasn’t practical. The books are gone, rare edition or paperback novel, popular or ignored.

When someone in my family passes on, their stories and wisdom are gone. My grandpa’s knowledge of hatcheries and business management is unavailable. His stories of being a manager at Coca-Cola during WW II and helping neighbors exceed their sugar quota are just memories now. I can’t ask him what he saw when he visited China in 1978. My nephews and nieces’ kids won’t hear his stories, sense of humor and love of snowmobiles. Others in my family have also died. Their libraries were also burned down by cancer or old age.

The past two years, so many libraries have burned. So many people suddenly gone.

On a personal level, grandchildren may never learn from their grandparents. Children are without a parent to share love and hope with. Marriages have been violently torn apart by a virus. Parents who won’t be able to see their child graduate from college, get married and start a career.

On an economic level there are skills and expertise that can’t be replaced. The future cannot benefit from over 600,000 people’s insights and knowledge; they’re gone. The cost is inestimable.

If someone was carrying a torch into a library, they would be stopped at the door. The freedom to carry a torch is not of a higher order than the need to prevent arson.

With an infectious disease, carrying a viral torch can start many fires. No one can know who is in danger, but it’s society’s prerogative to protect libraries. It is civilization’s duty to keep them safe.

Although the analogy isn’t perfect, wearing a mask and getting vaccinated are how I can avoid carrying a torch. They also help me not ignite others torches. Some libraries are more flammable than others, requiring more caution. When the winds are strong, it may take more effort to protect libraries than on a calm day.

I don’t want any more libraries to burn. Libertarian logic is incompatible with public health. It ignores how past disease outbreaks are defeated. Polio and smallpox were conquered because the needs of the community exceeded personal preference.

Some restrictions can be an affront to personal liberty but there is no right to carry a torch into a library.

“Blushes” by Graham Swift [The New Yorker]

Taking place in the middle of the pandemic, Graham Swift’s “Blushes,” is a story about growing up with diseases. The protagonist, Dr. Cole, travels the empty streets to start his day at the hospital. He remembers his childhood infections. As a youth, he could check off the childhood diseases that he had overcome. He felt pride at being able to finish the list of “desirable” diseases after turning ten.

In the story, the young Cole has a birthday party that reminds me of confusing times as a youth. We both were put in situations where the right answer wasn’t clear. The grownups didn’t help it make sense. Thinking on the parents holding the party, the older Cole remembered the dear women he had lost in the past few years. As an older man, Dr. Cole was able to reflect on his tenth birthday in ways that he couldn’t then.

“Blushes,” published in the January 18, 2021 issue of The New Yorker is one of the satisfying stories I’ve seen there. Each week, the magazine publishes a fiction piece, a short story, to counterpoint the excellent journalism in the rest of the magazine. I look forward to the story each week and make sure that I have time to read it. Often it is the frosting on the cake for a “birthday” that comes every week.

Covid caution

I’ve seen reports that in England there’s a variant of the Covid virus that is more easily transmitted.

That reminds me a couple things. First, there’s no guarantee that a mutation won’t make Covid more deadly. I’ve seen claims that that’s how viruses work–that they gradually become less lethal. However, that’s an wishful thought and not proven. There’s not a biological mechanism to guarantee that.

More ominously, the vaccine may select for variants that are able to infect vaccinated people. Just as antibiotics select for bacteria that become super-bugs, a vaccine could select for changes that make the vaccine quit working.

The reason for caution is that each new case of Covid can create mutations of the virus. Some can’t spread or don’t matter, but some could become clinically relevant. When there are hundreds of thousands of new cases each day, it increases the chances for a bad outcome.

It’s a reason to block transmission as diligently as possible. One never knows if a case, even those that are asymptomatic or mild, will become one that reignites the pandemic.

Having a vaccine is definitely not a reason to become complacent. Or think one can quit the hard work of the past 12 months. There seems to be a path out of the woods, but it’s not behind us.

Every case is another roll of the dice. One never knows if the virus will roll Yahtzee.

Surveillance Fatigue

On my way home from Wal-Mart this week, I realized that I don’t see the security cameras anymore. They are still there but now they’re background noise. There are more oppressive cameras at the self-checkout lanes but I even fail to notice the giant monitors.

Camera surveillance is just one way that my privacy can be invaded. Earlier, my awareness of privacy was much more acute. I would use the Tor browser when visiting websites. I would monitor where I go on the open internet. I reflected on how my search queries might be analyzed and would self-censor before blogging anything too controversial. I used the privacy aware search engine DuckDuckGo. I would talk to friends about privacy. I even spent a semester studying privacy in an independent study with a privacy researcher at IUPUI.

In my trajectory on privacy, my alert level has gradually lessened. I’ve reached the point that I don’t notice obvious surveillance. However, I have some habits that stuck. I still use DuckDuckGo. I read privacy statements and TOS. I avoid my Gmail account. (However, now I’m bending on the convenience of using the Gmail address for login credentials. Three steps forward; two steps back.)

So that’s the point: I took my high level of awareness and have dropped off. I still have a few habits that have survived. But I reached a level of surveillance fatigue and I’ve lost my zeal for privacy. My behavior has changed but not by much.

The problem with surveillance fatigue is that when future technology changes require me to upgrade my vigilance, I won’t. I will recall the amount of effort it took previously and feel the new effort is too much work. I’ll reject small changes that objectively aren’t very burdensome. In effect, I overshot the balance point. I know there are things I can do to improve my privacy but I don’t do them. I’m complacent about the issue. My experience at a high alert has inoculated me from becoming more careful again.

Facebook and other surveillance services bank on this effect. They creep into newer and newer privacy assaults yet people ignore the danger. Users’ initial alarm has drifted into impotence. The surveillance continues to spread without adequate push-back.

COVID enabled strong actions at first, but now the memory of their consequences inoculates people from taking any action. If mask wearing is a habit, it could persist. Because avoiding bars and sit-down restaurants its easy, I won’t think about them when deciding what to have for dinner.

People’s threshold of willingness has drooped and they’ve fallen into the fatigue trap. They won’t take small but effective changes because they get conflated with the big changes that were hard.

Surveillance fatigue is an example of a common pattern in human behavior. A flurry of activity can respond to an emergent situation. However, the responses will gradually fall off. Unless the effective steps become a habit, privacy will continue to erode. Unless the balance point is reached with COVID precautions, it will continue to spread.

Six Degrees of COVID-19

How many degrees of separation are you from COVID-19?

There are different ways to count degrees of separation–the number of relationships one person is away from another.

Generally, everyone is six degrees of separation from any other person. You can reach any person on earth by crossing six social connections. The game Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon asks for an actor’s shortest path of costarring roles to reach Kevin Bacon.

There are also degrees of COVID-19 phenomena. They measure how many patients are different degrees of separation from you. In early January, most of the patients were 6 degrees of separation from me. As the pandemic continues, the world is shrinking. When did the degrees of COVID-19 change to 5 for most patients? As the pandemic spreads, that number will get smaller and smaller.

An interesting psychological transition must happen before a disease feels real and threatening. People could be three or four degrees of separation from many COVID-19 patients and not realize it. Cognitively, the number of cases in the US is just a big number without emotional impact. However, knowing your connection to those people might be more visceral.

I’m sure that when people are one or two degrees of separation from COVID-19, the disease will seem to be an obvious threat. The degrees of separation for people who were hospitalized for COVID-19 will be higher, but could be more impactful for people who pooh-pooh the disease’s risks.

I hope that the more macabre statistic, the degrees of COVID-19 deaths will not get low. Leaders must not be heedless because the possibility is real. Decisive action can keep the Degrees of COVID-19 from drifting down further.

How many sick people are 3 or 4 degrees of separation from you is hard to gauge. It’s a crucial fact that is hidden by case counts.

COVID-19 might be a tsunami, but we can always move farther from the shore. Animations that show projections of how my degrees of COVID-19 are changing could be a meaningful display of how close the tsunami is to me.

Film Review: 12 Monkeys (1995)

Twelve Monkeys is a story about the world after a viral plague kills 6 billion people in 1996. The time travel story jumps between the 1990s before the pandemic and decades into the future. The future is run by strange scientists who hope to track down the virus’ origin. They send James Cole (Bruce Willis) back in time with a mission to gather information.

Another protagonist in the movie is the psychiatrist Kathryn Railly (Madeleine Stowe). She is interested in the history of people who present a Cassandra complex. The Cassandra myth describes someone who knows the future but cannot do anything to change it. She wrote a book documenting examples of such people appearing in the past.

She is unfazed when she meets Cole who has the same outlook. She believes that he is mentally ill and she first meets him in her psychiatric hospital in 1990. She tries to maintain a clinical and objective interest in Cole. Cole vanishes for several years after his first hospital stay. He meets her a few years later and he kidnaps her for several days. Much of the story takes place during that kidnapping as she learns more about Cole’s remarkable story.

The future scientists are interested in a mysterious Army of the Twelve Monkeys which their surveillance indicates is responsible for the virus’ release. The Army of the Twelve Monkeys was led by Jeffrey Goines, played by Brad Pitt. His wannabe insurgents appear to be central actors in the plague because Goines father is a biologist studying deadly viruses. However, the exact role of Goines’ team is unclear until the end of the film. Goines and Cole meet when he shows Cole around the psych ward in 1990.

Bruce Willis and Brad Pitt provide excellent performances in the film. Willis portrays Cole as disoriented by time travel who does not know whether he is delusional or a “volunteer” traveling back in time on behalf of the scientists. He clearly demonstrates the sense of confusion and helplessness that his character experienced. Pitt portrays Goines as privileged, crazy and unpredictable with many goofy antics. Often institutionalized, Goines acts paranoid, manic and defiant. While in the hospital in 1990, he has a wild pillow escapade to help Cole escape. Goines has boundless energy and Pitt plays him very convincingly. Gradually Goines’ friends in the Army of the Twelve Monkeys realize he is unhinged and that his plans are going to end badly.

Little Kindnesses

A clockThe COVID-19 pandemic makes me think deeply about my mortality and the mortality of the people I love. Making it to the next birthday seems more of an accomplishment now than last year. I don’t know what will happen between now and December. Who that I know will have become sick? Who will have never recovered? How will I deal with so much grief?

I think about what to do while I’m at home. (I won’t say “stuck at home.” It’s a privilege that I have a home.) Fortunately, I’ve got projects to keep me busy. I can focus on them more intently if I’m not thinking about going out for groceries, planning my next trip to Fort Wayne and looking for the best gas price.

With heavy feelings so infectious, it’s easy to forget the humanity of the people I don’t know. But, it is more important than ever to recognize my neighbor as like me. The one who lives in the next apartment or the stranger who comes to the store at the same time as me. The neighbor that is the “other” I don’t trust. In this crisis, there is no “other” in the eyes the coronavirus. I don’t know their names, who their kids are and whether putting food on the table is a burden. But, they are all facing the same end as me.

Unity in suffering.

It’s more important to me than ever to do small kindnesses for the people I meet. They might be hungry, angry at the people stuck inside with them, lonely for human contact that they’re trying to distance themselves from. I don’t know what they face, but I can be confident that it is hard. I can acknowledge their burden with respect and not add to it.

I’m alone in my house, but I don’t feel lonely. I am busy and can talk to a person or two each day by phone. It is kind for someone to take or return my call. I try to do the same.

The mathematics are against us. Italy is an example of the nations a few days ahead of us that is suffering badly. Others countries that have been taking stronger measures appear to be keeping up. I want to not add to the suffering in my country. Being willing to do whatever I need to is a way to do that.

If the guidance I get is not based in the epidemiology and science, I can be confident that ones providing that guidance don’t value my life or the life of my loved ones. I don’t have time for that.

How the U. S. health system could catch up to Nigeria

In 2014, Nigeria had 19 cases of Ebola. They marshaled their resources to trace contacts and quickly fought back a deadly, contagious disease. [1]

With the tool of contact tracing, Nigeria won their Ebola battle. They used experience that was already in place to fight back Ebola. Nigeria’s health system had eradicated polio and it stopped Ebola too. This is a lesson that health systems can have flexible responses and fight different kinds of epidemic.

Contact tracing is an important activity that needs community support. Effective contact tracing also requires planning. If no one knows how it works, they can’t react quickly. We should develop epidemic response teams. They need experience so that they can be vigilant and fight any new disease.

An parallel to epidemic response teams are the tornado sirens in the Midwest. The sirens are regularly tested and people know what they mean. Epidemics are a natural disaster equivalent to tornadoes. When people know the steps to prevent an epidemic, they will be willing to aid the process instead of fight it. Communities’ experience with epidemic responses will help overcome individual’s lack of trust.

To let the health reaction teams do their best, it would be prudent to have the systems already functioning. With test runs and vigilance, our reaction to any epidemic disease can be rapid and effective. Each disease is different. The model for combating measles and the mumps are similar, but they are not identical to the one needed for Zika. Creativity and experience are a must.

The testing of the system does not need to be theoretical. We already have periodic small epidemics that can test epidemic response teams. Measles is one example because outbreaks happen randomly when the disease is imported [2]. Another real-life example is the mumps. Outbreaks periodically happens on college campuses. One is happening now in Indiana and our reaction should be more effective. HIV & AIDS are an ongoing test. AIDS doesn’t spread as rapidly as measles or the mumps, but the same tools can help.

Existing vaccinations help prevent epidemics. The U. S. is backward in this area because of our attitudes on freedom. Those attitudes aren’t compatible with what the country needs to prevent unnecessary deaths.

The CDC reports another barrier for an epidemic response is financial. Epidemic response teams need discretionary funds and the authority to release those funds immediately. Any delay will worsen an epidemic. Epidemic responses teams need their funding allocated before the epidemic starts. The budgets for disease tracing and other tools need to be flexible. [3, p. 11]

Support for thorough contact tracing is critical. We need teams trained and ready for an epidemic. Their services should be used automatically when a potential epidemic is detected. We need to develop public experience and education on the steps that will defeat an epidemic. We need extensive use of vaccinations when they are available. Finally, money is needed for a rapid response. This economic support can allow the other components react decisively.

With these components, the U.S. health system will be able to easily defeat any currently unknown epidemic or bio-terrorism and surpass Nigeria’s Ebola success. We could have more confidence in our health system and in its ability to protect us.
—
[1] “Nigeria is now free of Ebola virus transmission.” http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/ebola/20-october-2014/en/. Retrieved June 6, 2016.
[2] “Measles: Cases and Outbreaks.” http://www.cdc.gov/measles/cases-outbreaks.html. Retrieved June 6, 2016.
[3] “Emergency Guideline: Implementation and management of contact tracing for Ebola virus disease.” http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/185258/1/WHO_EVD_Guidance_Contact_15.1_eng.pdf. Retrieved June 7, 2016.

[edit 2016-06-10: clarified last paragraph]