Week 2 of Coronavirus: top links and articles
Two weeks ago, I published an article which desperately asked for people to read the data presented on COVID-19, think in systems, and use it to make decisions. I am taking that as Week zero. Here is some reading from Week two.
The Imperial College Report
If you have an appetite for academic papers, then here is the original 20 page paper from 16th March to read through first-hand. However, the article below summarises everything you need to know. The key takeaways: without an aggressive suppression strategy, millions will die. However, with a suppression strategy, we are looking at a quarantine of up to 18 months, which is the upper limit of how long a vaccine is predicted to take to develop. Sobering.
Takes you through the analysis from Imperial College (as the report itself is 20 pages long and an academic paper). In summary, if we do nothing and just let the virus run its course, the team predicts, we could see three times as many deaths as we see from cardiovascular disease each year. If we only use mitigation approaches, a lot of people will still die. Suppression is the only approach to consider. With serious mitigation, this will slow things down.
- US, UK coronavirus strategies shifted following UK epidemiologists’ ominous report and Britain Drops Its Go-It-Alone Approach to Coronavirus
CNN article that documents the turning point when this Imperial College report triggered in the UK (and US) to shift strategies, and an article that talks about the UK in particular, and where “Johnson government admits its strategy of allowing the virus to spread and build up immunity was a failure but stops short of mandatory controls.” The Johnson government decided there as too much of a risk of Britons developing “behavioural fatigue”, which over 200 prominent British scientists challenged the government’s approach in an open letter that questioned whether “enough is known about ‘behavioural fatigue’. It’s a fascinating time to experience the interplay between science and politics.
An excellent step by step guide to staying healthy
This is a wonderful guide of practices and recommendations to staying healthy in the time of Covid-19. Checked it through and the advice seems very sound (while not being medical advice). Share with loved ones and family.
Data
Numbers from a reliable source on Confirmed Total Cases, Confirmed Total Deaths and Confirmed Total Recovered. In the bottom left-hand corner you can see when the data was last confirmed. Supplement this with this map of COVID-19 tests per million people around the world (I haven’t confirmed the source of this yet — have tweeted here) and the additional limitations and obstructions to a real view of the situation outlined in my blog on systemic approaches to understanding Covid-19.
Selection of think pieces I’ve been reading
EXTREMELY good resource (data + article) from Our World In Data, including the opportunity to track how many cases in each country on each different day. Very useful for amateur research.
Very important article. A call from Harari to consider the long-term implications of the choices we make today. Consider the world that will remain after this pandemic. It will not be the same as the one we were in before. Short term emergency measures become fixtures of life. “Decisions that in normal times could take years of deliberation are passed in a matter of hours. Immature of even dangerous technologies are pressed into service, because the risks of doing nothing are bigger.” The scale of the experiments going on right now between countries is akin to nothing we’ve seen before. He lays out possible scenarios — totalitarian surveillance and citizen empowerment, nationalist isolation and global solidarity. The reality will be a mix of these.
Interesting pieces: pointing out that this is a “novel” virus — i.e. nobody on Earth has immunity, and it could potentially infect 7.8 billion people (and maybe even twice). The quote: “It’s the most dangerous pandemic in our lifetime” and (on Trump): “this is the most irresponsible act of an elected official that I’ve ever witnessed in my lifetime.”
- Deep Code: Situational Assessment: Right Now by Jordan Hall
Offers a salient global, geopolitical view with a focus on the possible threats and the whole system fragility this pandemic is shining a light on, then goes on to touch on the significant opportunities, and the potential consequences of taking/not taking them, towards the end of the article. Outlines major threat vectors: medical, political, resource, finance, supply chain, infrastructure, governance, power related vectors. Points at decentralised networks and possibility of new institutions to offer higher quality, faster and more responsive sense-making and action in this time.
“Statistically, about 70% of people will not recognise a crisis as a crisis. This is termed ‘normalcy bias’ and is a pretty well known cognitive bias or common thinking error for people.”
Not really new stuff here if you have read the Imperial College London report — but Tomas Pueyo lays things out in a readable way and provides a nice metaphor and a petition to get governments to listen to a suppression strategy.
The Hermit
Articles that add important perspective
People are often citing this alongside the figure of the 4.2 million premature deaths globally are linked to ambient air pollution.
Keep in mind the insidious trends that can creep through under the guise of ‘keeping you safe’.
Old article from Alex Evans et al. about trends that undermine our democracy, also feels like essential reading right now
- Born For Storms: Nine Lessons on Creating Welcome and the Journey to Recovery (original in 2013 updated 2017) and Can humanitarian response practices help UK civil society respond to COVID-19?
Curveball: I’m finding a lot of interesting data to input into sense-making and modelling from the humanitarian aid sector. To start, here are some easy to read article on stages of response and adaptation to emergencies from the humanitarian sector.
More on how the FDA and CDC tried to thwart the Seattle study that finally discovered the coronavirus had been circulating uncaught in the city for weeks. And Pro Publica talks about how, in addition to thwarting more coronavirus tests, the FDA is forcing the CDC to waste its few tests by testing the same people twice.
This is an article by Zeynep Tufecki that has a very similar message mine about a need for a systems approach. They say: “We wasted February and the failure wasn’t just from the administration. Many in media, too, fueled the complacency. Why? Because we don’t know how to think about complex systems — something we must learn to get through this.” Read more to find out the need for a complex systems lens to better prepare for large-scale emergency and collapse in the future.
19 days of poetry on contagion
A friend is sharing a poem from her friend on theme of “contagion” each day. Here is the poem from Day 5 that especially resonated. Thank you Jo Kerr for loyally sharing each day.
Videos
- Your COVID 19 Briefing EP1 and EP2 with Peter Drobac
Daily videos coming out from The Conduit in London with world class epidemiologists. These first two episodes are with Peter Drobac, a global health physician and social entrepreneur, and the Director of the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship. In this video, he shares the latest updates on the COVID-19 pandemic, the challenges still to come and the good news we should celebrate.
Top systemic risk analysis. Gives a really good geopolitical perspective and thinking out loud about China, global geopolitical dynamics, impacts of quarantine, and risks of a weakened defence system against attack from secondary events. Makes a clear call for nation-wide quarantine and a “smart” quarantine with diagnostics and collecting data (akin to China).
Good resources for people who don’t realise yet how serious this is
Numbers: 331 million people in America. CDC estimates 40–70% will get infected. Let’s say 150 million people (45% — lower estimate). Of the people affected, 80% will be fine. 20% will need hospitalisation. Italy has more per capita hospital beds than America. 5–10% of the number infected will need a ventilator for life support. 5% of 150million people is 7.5 million ventilators needed in America. In America we have 72,000–120,000 ventilators. Let’s say 150,000 with extra support. 150,000 people divided by 7.5 million ventilators means 0.02 = 2% of people can get a ventilator. That means 1 in 50 will get access. 49 people out of 50 will need to die.
A historic letter from 1920 during the Spanish Influenza that opens perspective
Thanks to my friend Kate Beecroft for sharing this, and helping me gain some wiggle room in my perspective.
Dearest Rosemary,
It was a limpid dreary day, hung as in a basket from a single dull star. I thank you for your letter. Outside, I perceive what may be a collection of fallen leaves tussling against a trash can. It rings like jazz to my ears. The streets are that empty. It seems as though the bulk of the city has retreated to their quarters, rightfully so. At this time, it seems very poignant to avoid all public spaces. Even the bars, as I told Hemingway, but to that he punched me in the stomach, to which I asked if he had washed his hands. He hadn’t. He is much the denier, that one. Why, he considers the virus to be just influenza. I’m curious of his sources.
The officials have alerted us to ensure we have a month’s worth of necessities. Zelda and I have stocked up on red wine, whiskey, rum, vermouth, absinthe, white wine, sherry, gin, and lord, if we need it, brandy. Please pray for us.
You should see the square, oh, it is terrible. I weep for the damned eventualities this future brings. The long afternoons rolling forward slowly on the ever-slick bottomless highball. Z. says it’s no excuse to drink, but I just can’t seem to steady my hand. In the distance, from my brooding perch, the shoreline is cloaked in a dull haze where I can discern an unremitting penance that has been heading this way for a long, long while. And yet, amongst the cracked cloudline of an evening’s cast, I focus on a single strain of light, calling me forth to believe in a better morrow.
Faithfully yours,
F. Scott Fitzgerald
UK News
UK government to pay 80% of wages for those not working in coronavirus crisis
“In an unprecedented step for the British government, the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, said the state would pay grants covering up to 80% of the salary of workers if companies kept them on their payroll, rather than lay them off as the economy crashes. The extraordinary payments will be worth up to a maximum of £2,500 per month, just above the median income.”
But: consider who is ‘in’ and who is ‘out’ of the package of support…
- freelancers from all industries who have seen work dry up overnight
- gig economy and zero hours workers
- cash in hand workers / those working informally
- those who were let go before the announcement (already huge amounts of damage done).
Article in The Sunday Telegraph:
This screenshot of a paragraph from The Sunday Times was going viral on the weekend:
On interrogating sources, it seems this comes from reported speech, which is pretty poor journalistic practice. But this screenshot seemed to confirm what a lot of the UK public were suspicious of around the government’s original “herd immunity” strategy.
Clapping for NHS workers last night
Every night at 8pm. London came alive last night and moved many of us to tears. This gives me hope for a world where we appreciate those who really keep our society going: the nurses, the doctors, the mothers, the carers, the healthcare workers,
If you think this article is important, please make an effort to share it with your networks, and show your encouragement with some claps and remember you can clap up to 50 times if you like it a lot!
Do you want to keep sensing along with me? Get in touch here: send me a message. This will also add you to my newsletter.
Phoebe Tickell — Catalyzing transformative innovation in the face of converging crises, advising on complexity approaches, systems design, and education for regenerative development.
