My Personal Thoughts on the Coronavirus: 2. The Immediate Urgency

BTW, Part of my keynote in Shift/CX will be broadcasted live this Thursday (tomorrow) on the worldwide web. So if you are locked down at home, please tune in.

Survival of the Fastest

Since the basic reproductive number (R0) of Covid19 is about 2.28, it will spread exponentially. So speed is of the essence with the screening and containment measures. Faster and earlier intervention can have multiplicative impacts. Unfortunately, most western countries are too complacent and did not recognize that a virus does not respect any borders, whether it’s geopolitical, racial, ethnic or even cultural.

Moreover, most people are terrible at estimating exponential processes. We always overestimate in the short term and underestimate in the long term, which sounds like most situations in businesses. Consequently, we wasted valuable time in the beginning when the infection is relatively slow. Exponential processes are like a silent tsunami, if we react only when we felt it, it’s probably too late. By then the only thing we can do is damage control and play catch up. The illustrative example in the figure below will surprise you.

How can we react to something before we can even feel it? We look at other infection epicenters. Assuming that we are special and it’s not going to happen to us is ignorant as assuming the Earth is the center of the universe. 

So look at what has happened elsewhere, act fast and act early.

“The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function.” — Albert Allen Bartlett

Human Nature or Human Flaws

Unlike bacteria, a virus is technically not even a living thing, because it can’t replicate by itself. It has to trick the host’s cellular machinery to help them replicate. What’s unbelievable is that this brainless virus can even outsmart the young and unafraid, tricking them to help the spread of Covid19. It leverages human flaws (e.g. selfishness, narcissism, and the insatiable craving for attention and social validation), and was able to get people to congregate, party, and lick everything from groceries to toilet seats. For what? More Likes on social media? Just for fun, these people are willfully putting others at fatal risk. Their actions are not only disgusting, but irresponsible, disrespectful, and punishable.

The Mask Culture, or the Lack of it

IIf you’ve been to Japan or Taiwan, you’ll notice that wearing a face mask during flu and allergy season is both a hygienic protection and a common courteous. In these countries, wearing a mask is part of everyday culture just as wearing a veil for Middle Eastern women. It’s not only customary, it’s appreciated. In Japan and Taiwan, masks can even be considered a fashion accessory just like a hat. Personally, I always have a reusable mask in my backpack (albeit not N95 rated) and wear them in crowded spaces.

It’s easy to say that we should cover our sneeze with our elbow, but the truth is that at the moment when we sneeze, we may not be able to react fast enough, or our hand and elbow may not be free. With a cough, this is easier, but people still routinely missed the first few coughs. Why not just wear a mask? It’s easier and foolproof!

I was shocked when the CDC didn’t recommend that we wear masks. “Mask does not help much.” Ridiculous! If it doesn’t help, why do healthcare workers wear them? “Wear a mask only when you are sick.” But Covid19 is infection without symptom. So you won’t even know if you are sick. If I can’t ensure the people around me is not infectious, it does provide some protection from possible cough and sneeze aerosol droplets, which can travel >6 feet. At the very least, it prevents me from accidentally touching my face with my hand.

But I understand why. It is precisely because of the lack of such mask culture in the western world, that the volume of masks circulating in the society is already limited. With the global supply chain disrupted by Covid19, masks are in such short supply that even the frontline healthcare workers do not have enough. If these frontline workers become infected, it would significantly compromise our containment capacity, and we’ll get into a situation similar to Italy. For any containment to work, our frontline and the only line of defense must not fall. If they fall, we all fall.

So wear a mask and protect yourself. It doesn’t need to be a surgical mask or N95 rated, so there is no need to hoard masks! It’s selfish. You may say it’s human nature, but it’s actually a human flaw. By hoarding medical supplies, you are unknowingly putting yourself and everyone at greater risk and contributing to our own demise.

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This article is part of a series, if you miss the previous discussions, they are linked below.

1. Making Sense of the Reality

Ok, that's it for today. Stay home, stay healthy, and stay tuned in. See you again.