Choices.

I sat for a while watching golfers yesterday and came away with three thoughts:

#1–WOW, a lot of folks really stink at golf..😂

and #2–WOW, these golfers were mostly all being pretty disciplined about social distancing. (Good for them!)

Which brings me to #3:

I was listening to a Swedish epidemiologist last night discussing his country’s response to COVID which is basically a lot more muted than any other place on the planet. Most businesses in Sweden are still up and running  in sharp contrast to the rest of the shut down world. He talked about the whole point of flattening the curve which we all know was focused on one thing: not overwhelming hospitals with sick people. Flattening the curve doesn’t make Covid go away..it just prevents a high peak and spreads sickness and death over a longer period of time.  It’s kinda like pulling off a bandaid, you can rip it off in one quick yank or slowly, incrementally peel it away.

Either way, the bandaid is coming off.

The interviewer put up a graph comparing Sweden’s higher number of cases to its neighbors. The scientist explained the graph wasn’t an indication of failure but rather a predicted (accepted) reflection of the decision his country made to “stay open” and leave the choice to stay home up to the individual. He then made an interesting, provocative prediction: when this COVID event is completely over, there will not be a substantial difference in final figures (fatality rates etc) between countries that shut down and those that didn’t.

Which brings me back to the golfers..

MOST were being very good about staying separated by about 10 feet,

SOME were not,

and A FEW no doubt had stayed home.

I’m assuming that when things start “opening up” we will see the same type of tiered response..which will still, inevitably, lead to an uptick in cases of the virus compared to the lockdown numbers.

The question is this: will the increase in cases be considered a failure or a predicted (accepted) reflection of our choices?

Will we continue to measure success or failure as we have from the start: by our hospitals’ ability to “handle the load” or are we going to shift and now remeasure success or failure with every rise and fall of the “curve.”