Coronavirus: Our decisions are always in the wrong box.

"It's difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on not understanding it" Upton Sinclair.

I made a resolution when we returned from the United States to live in the UK. I was going to be a more responsible driver. Therefore when I purchased a car, I went for one that had a speed limiter. That little device that enables you to set a limit on the speed you want to travel at. I reach the motorway, set the speed and let the car do a much better job of driving legally and in an environmentally friendly way than I could on my own. The car automatically adjusts to traffic speed, hills etc and maintains as consistent a speed as possible.

It was a while ago that one of my mentors recommended the grid above. Her explanation at the time was that covid was not like a regular crisis because the scorecard we were using was inadequate, we need a windscreen that shows the future not a rear view mirror that shows the past.

The box that governments and businesses really do not want to be in is "slow and wrong". The consequences of continually making decisions that fall into this box would be potentially catastrophic. Unfortunately, as a country, the UK has a growing list of decisions why is this?

We are using, talking about and even promoting lagging indicators when these are woefully inadequate in the current crisis. I equate it to losing your car keys somewhere on a street on a dark night, but only looking for them in places where the street lights shine. With coronavirus, if you wait until the current indicators show you have a problem, the problem has already got away from you. The problem is like a runaway freight train. Once it is rolling It takes a long long time to get it back under control. 

I could select several pieces of data to show this but the one I have selected is a simple one. England locked down everything on 16 March 2020. On that day we had 42 deaths in England. The next day that we had less than 42 deaths in England was 26th June. It took fourteen weeks to get back to the death rate on the day we chose to lock down. So, by the time we really acted the situation was already a runaway freight train.  

Now, back in March governments could largely be forgiven for errors. A lot of this was new. However I think it is fair to be a lot less forgiving six months later. 

We can all understand government reticence to acting early. As the old adage goes, being early is the same as being wrong. Except of course in relation to coronavirus being early is actually the key to being right. 

So, complaining is of little use. What to do about it? 

I do think there is much to be learned from countries that have managed the crisis well. You have to be wary though, because every country is different and so comparisons are always difficult. Many commentators have pointed for example to Sweden. If you compare Sweden with other European counties it looks as if they done well, but compare them with their closest neighbours (Finland, Norway and Denmark) you see a completely different picture. That said, I do think looking at countries that have done well for lessons is helpful. 

1. Have a scorecard with leading indicators.

We all know that the virus started in China, and that because they are a one party structure it makes interventions much more straight forward. However, the technology that some of my old team in China have shown me that they now have on all of their phones is amazing. The dashboard and information that is available to them as they wake up every day enables pro-active action.  

2. Draconian controls.

South Korea's test and trace system is world class. It uses all manner of data to monitor where people have been and then the follow up is fast and rigorous. Ok, privacy concerns in the UK mean people here would be terrified at the thought of the government being able to track and trace using all manner of their data but as we are all learning there are significant trade-off's in the new world we are living in.

3. Brilliant 100% execution of personal responsibility all the time.

From my personal experience I think well over 90% of people have followed the rules rigidly. The UK are a very compliant lot. Of course as we know, even 10% of people breaking the rules will be more than enough for this virus to take off again.

4. We must incentivise the right behaviour and find the cash.

We can all see that the virus has exacerbated so many inequality challenges we already had in the world. It's irrefutable that people that were poor before this all began will be much poorer at the end. I realise that government resources are not endless but we have to ensure that people and businesses that do the right things are not penalised. There really is no option but to do this without horrible unintended consequences.

This will not stop in any meaningful way until we get a vaccine so we have to learn to live with it. We need the next generation of my car speed limiter. The one that knows a hill is up ahead and therefore slightly accelerates before we reach it. It has to predict the road ahead, not just react as the car starts to slow down.

As I said in my blog last week I am afraid the next 6 months are going to be really tough.  

Be kind to each other.