I am considering restricting how often I look at COVID-19 news, because I am generally obsessing over it and I don't think it's good for me.
Maybe if (when?) things get bad enough that we no longer have a partisan divide over whether or not there's a problem... Idk.
I am very, very grateful that I have the job I do, and that I can work from home. Primarily because that's a lot less stress to deal with, but also because it means I have something to keep me busy most of the work week.
This has been my first full week working at home, btw, and it's been interesting. In some ways it reminds me of when I was studying for my degree, since I did it all online, but it's also... different. School work was less tied to a schedule, or rather I was able to create my own schedule entirely.
My state has issued a stay-at-home order, which for the most part I agree with. But (again), I don't have to stress over losing my job because of this. The fear and uncertainty everyone is feeling is understandable.
I've heard some people argue that the economic impacts may be worse than the disease, and idk about that. What I do know is that people who are alive can recover, eventually. But our system, which means many Americans live paycheck-to-paycheck with no safety cushion, means there's a serious risk that all the people who aren't getting paid right now will be unable to afford food if this goes on too long. Clearly, there are things good leaders will do to address that... but I don't want to derail this by discussing what's being proposed in Congress right now.
It's crazy, though. In the absence of strong national leadership each state is sort of doing their own thing. California, Washington (state, not DC), New York... and Illinois seem to be taking the most pro-active stances.
And then you get morons like that guy from Kansas who said they don't have a COVID-19 problem because there's so few Chinese in their state.
Like - Hellooooooo? It's been spreading within the states for a couple of weeks already? Those first few cases of community spread (I think towards the end of February) were my first big indicators that this was NOT going to go the way avian flu and swine flu did. It meant we'd completely lost track of the chain of transmission, and had absolutely no idea who did or didn't have it any more.
And since many people don't show any symptoms, it can pass from one asymptomatic person to another, and then just pop up somewhere else out of the blue.
Does Kansas have truck stops? People who visit relatives in other states? Students who go to college in other states?
Then you, too, probably have COVID-19 cases in your state, and denial just means that you're going to be caught completely off guard when people start needing medical attention for it.
The urban/rural divide is something to watch here, too. Because I think it spreads first to urban areas, ofc, and can spread to more people because of the population density... but that just means it will take longer to penetrate rural areas. And given how remote those rural areas are, and how far they are from medical support, it can actually be pretty devastating there as well.
Maybe. I'm not an expert, so what do I know?
I hope we're all overreacting, and that in a month this will all seem like some sort of fever dream.
Anyways. I've been thinking about how to handle the political situation, and social media, and all the misinformation out there.
Or rather, I've been feeling my way into my own policy, but it also depends on how busy I am and how much energy I have.
See, here's the thing. I think the facts on the ground will speak for themselves, so I don't really want to engage in someone willfully wrong. Like, we'll know soon enough, right?
But sometimes I do think it's important to speak out, because you never know who might be listening, who might decide not to go to a movie, or out for dinner, or what have you.
And it is important not to let misinformation pass unchallenged.
And then there's the issue of blame, which I have mixed feelings on.
Or rather, there's more than enough blame to go around, and it generally doesn't help matters. It's like a discussion we had, years ago, on how to manage healthcare organizations. You don't want to be too focused on blame, because that leads to people trying to hide things and cover them up. You want to keep the focus on identifying problems and coming up with systemic solutions for preventing them from happening again.
For example, let's say someone gave the wrong meds (or wrong dosage). If you focus on blame, they try to hide the mistake. If you focus on systemic change, you might look at what happened and decide to color code the medicine. Or do something to distinguish them by shape or size... anything to help make it easier for tired and exhausted nurses to know right away if they've got the right medicine.
So... the blame game is only useful to a certain extent. Or rather, the blame game is never useful, but you do need an honest assessment of mistakes made if you want to prevent them from happening again - so analysis of what went wrong is important. Just... don't tie it to blame.
This is hard, because every time I see someone try changing the narrative, shifting the blame, and obfuscating responsibility when lives are on the line it makes me really, really mad.
I want their feet held to a fire, I want everyone to know that their awful decisions led to the death of their loved ones, and I want them to lose all political support.
But... I know that's the typical in-group vs out-group, outsiders are all the enemy and must be destroyed, type of thinking.
Not helpful.
So I'm focusing mostly on challenging misinformation when it's being spread - if I have the time and energy - but not trying to get people (especially people determined to believe there's nothing wrong) to see what a disaster certain decisions have been.
But... I'm worried. Because I've already seen people doing the 'oh, it's a virus. Nobody can control it, it's like an Act of God' argument. Which completely misses the effect certain decisions have on the spread of said viruses.
I'm also worried because, well...
Fear brings out the worst in people.
Maybe if (when?) things get bad enough that we no longer have a partisan divide over whether or not there's a problem... Idk.
I am very, very grateful that I have the job I do, and that I can work from home. Primarily because that's a lot less stress to deal with, but also because it means I have something to keep me busy most of the work week.
This has been my first full week working at home, btw, and it's been interesting. In some ways it reminds me of when I was studying for my degree, since I did it all online, but it's also... different. School work was less tied to a schedule, or rather I was able to create my own schedule entirely.
My state has issued a stay-at-home order, which for the most part I agree with. But (again), I don't have to stress over losing my job because of this. The fear and uncertainty everyone is feeling is understandable.
I've heard some people argue that the economic impacts may be worse than the disease, and idk about that. What I do know is that people who are alive can recover, eventually. But our system, which means many Americans live paycheck-to-paycheck with no safety cushion, means there's a serious risk that all the people who aren't getting paid right now will be unable to afford food if this goes on too long. Clearly, there are things good leaders will do to address that... but I don't want to derail this by discussing what's being proposed in Congress right now.
It's crazy, though. In the absence of strong national leadership each state is sort of doing their own thing. California, Washington (state, not DC), New York... and Illinois seem to be taking the most pro-active stances.
And then you get morons like that guy from Kansas who said they don't have a COVID-19 problem because there's so few Chinese in their state.
Like - Hellooooooo? It's been spreading within the states for a couple of weeks already? Those first few cases of community spread (I think towards the end of February) were my first big indicators that this was NOT going to go the way avian flu and swine flu did. It meant we'd completely lost track of the chain of transmission, and had absolutely no idea who did or didn't have it any more.
And since many people don't show any symptoms, it can pass from one asymptomatic person to another, and then just pop up somewhere else out of the blue.
Does Kansas have truck stops? People who visit relatives in other states? Students who go to college in other states?
Then you, too, probably have COVID-19 cases in your state, and denial just means that you're going to be caught completely off guard when people start needing medical attention for it.
The urban/rural divide is something to watch here, too. Because I think it spreads first to urban areas, ofc, and can spread to more people because of the population density... but that just means it will take longer to penetrate rural areas. And given how remote those rural areas are, and how far they are from medical support, it can actually be pretty devastating there as well.
Maybe. I'm not an expert, so what do I know?
I hope we're all overreacting, and that in a month this will all seem like some sort of fever dream.
Anyways. I've been thinking about how to handle the political situation, and social media, and all the misinformation out there.
Or rather, I've been feeling my way into my own policy, but it also depends on how busy I am and how much energy I have.
See, here's the thing. I think the facts on the ground will speak for themselves, so I don't really want to engage in someone willfully wrong. Like, we'll know soon enough, right?
But sometimes I do think it's important to speak out, because you never know who might be listening, who might decide not to go to a movie, or out for dinner, or what have you.
And it is important not to let misinformation pass unchallenged.
And then there's the issue of blame, which I have mixed feelings on.
Or rather, there's more than enough blame to go around, and it generally doesn't help matters. It's like a discussion we had, years ago, on how to manage healthcare organizations. You don't want to be too focused on blame, because that leads to people trying to hide things and cover them up. You want to keep the focus on identifying problems and coming up with systemic solutions for preventing them from happening again.
For example, let's say someone gave the wrong meds (or wrong dosage). If you focus on blame, they try to hide the mistake. If you focus on systemic change, you might look at what happened and decide to color code the medicine. Or do something to distinguish them by shape or size... anything to help make it easier for tired and exhausted nurses to know right away if they've got the right medicine.
So... the blame game is only useful to a certain extent. Or rather, the blame game is never useful, but you do need an honest assessment of mistakes made if you want to prevent them from happening again - so analysis of what went wrong is important. Just... don't tie it to blame.
This is hard, because every time I see someone try changing the narrative, shifting the blame, and obfuscating responsibility when lives are on the line it makes me really, really mad.
I want their feet held to a fire, I want everyone to know that their awful decisions led to the death of their loved ones, and I want them to lose all political support.
But... I know that's the typical in-group vs out-group, outsiders are all the enemy and must be destroyed, type of thinking.
Not helpful.
So I'm focusing mostly on challenging misinformation when it's being spread - if I have the time and energy - but not trying to get people (especially people determined to believe there's nothing wrong) to see what a disaster certain decisions have been.
But... I'm worried. Because I've already seen people doing the 'oh, it's a virus. Nobody can control it, it's like an Act of God' argument. Which completely misses the effect certain decisions have on the spread of said viruses.
I'm also worried because, well...
Fear brings out the worst in people.
No comments:
Post a Comment