Gentle Decline 1/20: COVID-19 & Coping
Hello. This will probably be a short issue, because it's in response to a few people contacting me in various media wanting to know if I've any input on what they should do in response to COVID-19 and the measures that governments and authorities are (and are not) setting out, and what will happen afterward. And there's a limit to my rambling on that topic, at least for now.
First, this isn't really my wheelhouse. Pandemics are definitely anthropogenic, so maybe it should be, but the things to do are fairly clearly set out by bodies like the WHO, and it's not like that advice is not available to people. Mostly we (large, ambiguous, possibly society-wide we) know what to do, we're just a bit in denial about it, and also a bit freaked out because this hasn't actually happened to any of us before. However, I've spent years thinking and reading about what to do in the case of whatever disaster arose, and so I've read about this too.
Most of the precautions detailed by the WHO, or me, or whoever, are not going to stop you getting COVID-19. Some of us may already have it, we're probably all going to get it at some stage, and then we'll build up resistance to it, and then there'll be a vaccine (though that probably won't be this year), and then it'll be no more significant than any other coronavirus, of which there are plenty. The idea of these precautions is to slow down its advance, and make sure that medical facilities are not completely overwhelmed, at least until we have some idea of how to handle it better.
So: reduce contact with other people. Ideally, get to a state where you see only the same small number of people every day, and then either constantly (you live with them) or briefly and at a distance (postal delivery, with no contact). The ideal here probably isn't possible, because you need to make a living, deal with emergencies and unexpected problems, and remain sane. But you can work toward it. Read about the concept of "social distancing", if you haven't already. I am guessing that most of you are not in control of whether you can work from home or not. If you are, or even better, are able to control that for other people, send everyone home.
Wash your hands frequently, and apparently, try not to touch your face. Trying not to touch your face is a very good way to distract yourself from everything, because it's essentially impossible, and unless you wear oven gloves all the time, you're going to do so. But minimise it as best you can. And hand-washing is probably the single most effective thing you can do.
If you get symptoms, contact a health authority. They'll tell you what to do, which at this stage may mostly be "stay home, stay away from other people, keep warm, drink plenty of fluids", or might be "go to X place for a test" or might be "go straight to this hospital". Follow instructions. Your particular country (I'm looking at you, USA) may not be able to do much for you, but that's an unfortunate truth of where you're living; unless you are very rich, you're not going to be able to get better results by being better informed or louder, and being elsewhere is rapidly becoming difficult.
There is a lot of scaremongering and nonsense being circulated; don't forward on messages on Whatsapp about the country coming under martial law at 11:00 or whatever the latest guff is. Indeed, push back; contact the sender and tell them it's rubbish. Go to reliable news sites, see what's there, wait a few hours if something seems likely but isn't covered by reliable outlets yet. Nothing administrative is going to happen faster than 24 hours, anywhere.
And that is basically it. You can't do much more against the virus itself.
It's the knock-on effects that are going to be difficult. The stock markets are taking a beating, and I'll refer you to the words of Venkatesh Rao (who I think I quote more than anyone else) on this:
A modern economy as best as I can grok it:
Money used to buy stuff: $100
Money used to buy money: $200
Money used to bet on money used to buy money: $400
Money used to buy money to bet on money used to bet on money used to buy money: $1300
Total: $2000
% used to buy stuff: 5%
(he also has a good piece on COVID-19; it's worth reading)
The upshot is that a huge amount of what we call the economy is based on confidence and betting and life continuing as normal, and that's not going to happen for a couple of months. And lest you think this is pure consequence, there's a fair argument that it's also cause: "These are all the predictable consequences of giving power to people whose only understanding of the role of government is to protect investment portfolios." After quarantines and shutdowns end, there will be enormous pressure to return to life as normal, and I'm kind of not a fan of that either. I think the world should change in the wake of this, and equally, I don't believe it's going to. I reckon it'll either take massive effects from COVID-19 itself, or another couple of pandemics, before any real and permanent change is seen in the world.
In the short term, though: there will be a lot of people out of work. All the 'betting' forms of money (we call them "investments") which are not directly in land, gold, and other material things will reduce in value, and some will disappear. Some of you may be out of work, and people like me who are out of work at the moment anyway may take longer to find new jobs. This is a recession; we've had them before and we more or less know what to do with them.
There will be deaths. I mean, there have already been deaths in most countries. But the probability that someone you know will die in the next few months (either of COVID-19 or of something else that the overloaded medical services couldn't handle due to COVID-19) is pretty high. There will be people grieving, there will be inheritances and debts to be sorted out, and there will be the normal disturbances caused by deaths in any community, writ large because they will be everywhere at once. In worse scenarios - such as in Bergamo in Italy at the time of writing - it won't be possible to have proper funerals.
There will probably not be food shortages, people who need to move away from affected areas, or any of the usual things I write about here. Air pollution looks like it'll drop drastically for a few months, which would be nice, although it will only be temporary, and apply only to large particulate pollution, rather than greenhouse gases.
The theory I saw being poked at in one corner of Twitter, wherein the economic boost given to Europe in the wake of the Black Death was being looked at speculatively, is unlikely at best; that happened because peasant labour was suddenly a limited resource, and was due to the massive mortality rate of bubonic plague coupled with ignorance of its transmission. That isn't going to be the case for COVID-19, and in any case, the economy of the Middle Ages had (proportionally) a lot more buying stuff and a lot less betting on money used to bet on buying stuff, etc.
I am also aware of the theories that there is no actual virus, that it's not really having much effect beyond making people who are already unwell more unwell, etc. There are enough people who know about pandemics involved to make those theories look pretty suspect, but also: what are you going to do differently? We need to deal with reality as other people see it far more than as it "actually" is, so if everyone thinks there's a pandemic, then you're better served by going along with it than not. But I'm pretty sure there really is a COVID-19, Virginia.
And at that, there's not a whole lot more I can tell you. There may well be emergent local effects from the pandemic - since people in government in many parts of the world are quite old, there may be quite a number of them affected by it, and that will have knock-on effects - but none of that is predictable at a granular level. So stay home, wash your hands, keep calm as best you can, and we'll see what happens.
This issue brought to you by questions asked, some rage at government decisions in the country next door channeled into writing, post-apocalyptic eggs from the Hill of Tara, and a somewhat bitey cat. Next issue, for a change of pace, will be about my own gardening plans, and might even contain before and after pictures of an intended new potato bed.
If you feel that Gentle Decline would be useful to someone else in your life, please forward it on and/or show them the subscription link at https://tinyletter.com/gentledecline - and there's also an intermittently updated Twitter feed at @gentledecline. I'd love to have more people reading this and being, in some sense, better prepared for what's slowly coming.