In a crisis, what you don't see is critical

Adults have been trained to focus on what happens, on what is said, on what they can see, feel, hear and touch. When you study art you immediately learn that all good design is a dynamic combination of positive and negative space. What adults have been trained not to see is what doesn’t happen, what isn’t said, what isn’t visible or apparent. We seize on the positive and ignore the negative. What doesn’t happen, however, is as important as what does.

The European travel ban just imposed by the USA is extremely shortsighted and will not work. This is because it focuses on countries that have a lot of documented virus cases, and ignores the countries which don’t. European countries for the most part have good medical systems, and good systems test for the virus. Many countries have little or no cases because they’re not testing. This is either because their health care systems would be overwhelmed if they did or because their leaders fear the social structure of the country and their leadership roles would be at risk were the virus to take hold and people were to panic and blame.

You won’t find what you don’t look for

You overlook what you don’t want to find

Very few countries are doing enough testing. Most are doing very little. There are several important reasons for this. One is the initial reasons was lack of available tests, then most people who get the virus, are getting a mild version. They’re not very sick, they don’t need a hospital and they don’t want to pay for a test. Ah, yes we’ve just mentioned another big reason, who pays for the testing? Do governments pay, or is it the hospitals, the insurance companies or the individuals? Someone has to pay and when you’re facing the possibility of administering millions of tests, that’s a lot of money. Where does it come from?

Some countries have wanted to hold down infection numbers so as not to jeopardize upcoming major sporting events or elections, while others are influenced by infrastructures which are heavily dependent on tourism

If you ban people from countries who are testing and don’t also ban people from countries which are not testing, your ban won’t work. Just because you show no cases doesn’t mean you have none

Is a crisis a crisis if you ignore it? The question brings us back to the old much debated point if a tree falls in the forest but no one is there to hear it does it make a sound when it falls? No one wants a crisis. Therefore the most important thing in one is to get people to accept and admit that something they don’t want is indeed occurring

A crisis brings out the best and the worst in people

The worst thing in a crisis is when people start protecting themselves and their interests. The European Council President and European Commission President said in a joint statement yesterday, “the coronavirus is a global crisis, not limited to any continent and it requires cooperation rather than unilateral action.” The only way the crisis can be tackled is if countries work together and coordinate their strategies rather than work in isolation, but that seems like a difficult if not impossible task.

Even if a country shuts its borders completely, it can only do so for a certain amount of time. No country can close its borders until the virus runs its course everywhere

Little Red Riding Hood Crisis

In the children’s story of Little Red Riding Hood, the wolf follows the little girl to her grandmother’s house. In most versions of the story the girl is saved but the grandmother is not so lucky. This virus is similar, it spares the young but the old and weak are not so lucky.

Europe and North America were able to watch the crisis unfold in Asia and watch and evaluate what China and other countries did, but they wasted precious preparation time hoping the crisis would stay an Asian crisis. Hope however is not a strategy.

People try to give the least to get the most. When confronted with a problem, situation or crisis, they move slowly, progressively modifying their original positions, giving ground grudgingly. Highly creative people do the opposite. They go to the extreme and work backward. This lets them consider options others never get close to considering. It also makes them less afraid of solutions that others deem radical or impossible. In a crisis you have to accept that you won’t be able to continue to do what you’ve always done, that it won’t be business as usual. Many governments are still trying to control the corona virus while also keeping scheduled income generating public events and festivals, trying for the most while giving up the least. In a crisis, people, firms and governments often opt for tolerable solutions, and are only willing to take the drastic steps that are usually necessary when it explodes.