Life during the COVID-19 pandemic. Are we being too harsh on ourselves with our response and progress? Maybe.

All of us as individuals, communities, and every institution I can think of has had to confront something brand new and not well-understood starting in March, only 5 months ago. 

Since then, we have all been experimenting and learning in a very public way … what works and what doesn’t. This all the more difficult because the stakes are so high in terms of both the human and economic costs … and the pressure enormous. The healthcare system needed to learn how to more effectively test, contact trace, and treat people who are infected; I think it likely they have gotten much better at it as they ride the learning curve. Ditto schools and how to learn/teach@distance. Ditto businesses and how to work@distance … and how to transform business models to fit the new normal. Ditto individual people on how to mask, socially distance, and find workarounds and substitutes for formerly group activities/events. Ditto the federal government and research institutions on how to accelerate the discovery and scaling of therapeutics and vaccines. Etc. Etc.

I think it is a good thing that we are very dissatisfied with the rate of progress. That is good old American impatience. 

I also think it is a good thing that we compare our performance with that of other countries, states, and communities and be very unsatisfied when we aren’t the best. That is the pursuit of excellence and best practices, a never-ending process.

I am as impatient with progress … and hate being less than the best … as anyone. At the same time, it’s obviously a really, really hard problem, one with unprecedented impact, scope, and scale. We might all take a nanosecond of comfort and pride in how much we have learned and improved … in this only 5-month old global and national learning experience.