Post-COVID life, how would it look like?
Probably normal to be honest. All the talk about the “new normal” is hyped up. Surely there will be more awareness about personal hygiene and basic precautions to undertake when someone feels sick, but probably nothing would fundamentally change on the social front. This is also not a prediction. It is already happening in countries that have “flattened the curve”.
Data inconsistency
This should have been clear from the beginning for anyone with basic mathematics understanding. Here is my attempt at those numbers on May 8, 2020.
- ∵≈96% of reported deaths had a pre-existing condition
- ∴ Net deaths to date >270k*4% ≈10.8k
- ∵<1% of 8b tested
- ∴ >390m positives
- ∴ Death rate > 28 per million
This basically translates to a death rate of 0.003%, or 0.3% if all underlining health conditions, e.g. late-stage cancer patients, are not considered within the calculation. As of May 26, 2020, 151 countries have 28 per million death or lower. However, some were even doubting the 0.3% death rate for coronavirus, earlier this month.
Recent data released, by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States (CDC), clarified the death rate from COVID-19 is 0.4%, as per their best estimates. Much lower than 10% claimed by WHO at the beginning, and five times lower than dividing WHO numbers at face-value, which is currently at 2%. It can only go lower as well, where datasets are getting larger and biased data is being purged.
Distancing impact
The term “social distancing” screams ignorance, since avoiding physical contact does not equate social distancing or even isolation. It should have been called from the beginning “physical distancing”. The UN has come out recently to correct the grave blunder by WHO and is now calling it physical distancing. “Physical distancing does not have to mean social or emotional isolation.” — UN Twitter. Moreover, the actual “social” distancing is causing people to suicide in droves. Last week was mental health week, and the stats being shared about the spike in suicides were shocking, to say the least.
As for the health impact, keeping physical distance between a group of people interacting withing the same space is almost meaningless. Germs spread across the air and onto most surfaces, so the better approach is to stay home when one feels sick instead. If physical presence is needed one can wear a mask, which is orders of magnitude more effective than arbitrary 2 meters.
East Asian experience
If you have watched a video of people walking in Tokyo or other East Asian cities, e.g. Taipei, Seoul, you would have noticed people wearing masks, long before all this. This helps tremendously in avoid infections, to begin with.
It is time the world learns from those experiences and educate the public when necessary about the value of protecting others when one is sick. Even if someone is selfish, they should know that wearing a mask is protecting themselves in reciprocation.
Policymakers
China is the only developed country in the world now with an economy that is not deteriorating. It is not China’s fault either, policymakers in other countries seem to be incompetent. As for China itself, its people are starting to get back to normal life. One direct window into the Chinese market is through lenses of a business research firm in Shanghai, posting on LinkedIn.
Sweden seems to be the exception to the rule, where policymakers there refuted the authoritarian lockdown philosophy and did not trade their citizens freedom for political correctness. The approach is not only excellent, it is the eventual reality that other countries will have to follow. Since sooner or later policymakers will have to scrap lockdown policies to cut their economic and political losses. Why Sweden’s COVID-19 Strategy Is Quietly Becoming the World’s Strategy, is an excellent article covering the Swedish model.
Conclusion
I wish the crisis was just used to focus on hygiene awareness, as it initially started. The authoritarian twist was a terrible mistake made by most countries. Each country that followed the authoritarian model paid dearly in economic loss and more importantly preventable fatalities directly related to lockdown, e.g. suicides. These losses would probably continue to intensify until leadership take responsibility and reopen economies.
