The one that stayed away saved them all!

I'd have never thought I'd write an article on LinkedIn. I only comment occasionally and prefer to work in the shadows, rarely talk about my - mostly confidential - assignments in the consumer technology, media, and entertainment domain - and leave the limelight to those who crave it. People I've worked with tell me I'm ahead of the curve, that the strategic initiatives I propose are too early, that the market has to do this or that first, and that consumers are simply not ready for what I've in mind. Quite often, my clients are surprised when things happen faster than expected. By the time the train gets rolling, and self-nominated "experts" jump on, I've usually moved to pastures uncharted. In my strategic planning process, I prepare for the worst and hope for the best. See, I'm a data-driven, consumer-oriented realist. Things can go South, and often do, which is why I always have a Plan B in store. Usually, my best case is the management board's worst case. That's OK with me. I'm happy if business plans turn out better than expected, and admittedly I've been wrong on several forecasts (notably on social media service WhatsApp and indie "The Blair Witch Project"); but overall, my hit rate, or so I'm told, is above 75%. Take it or leave it. I can live with that. This time though, I hope and want to be the pessimistic hyperbole who's just plain stupid and wrong. Time will tell.

This post isn't about me. It's about you. To be more precise, those of you who still don't listen to reason and go about daily business as if nothing has happened or is going on out there. After living some 25 years abroad in various countries, I returned to Germany back in 2018 for urgent health matters in my family. What I encountered is a complacent country that has lost any sense of urgency and understanding of strategic initiatives. This has become even more prevalent with the governments' and public' response to the COVID-19 pandemic. I'm referencing the situation in Germany, but I'll write this post in English because I see similar patterns across the Western world: Damage control, as opposed to direct problem solving that was successfully exhibited by the Asian countries yet entirely ignored by the Western hemisphere! This leaves me concerned. There will be those not taking action or making fun of me. Fine, I don't care. It's up to you to decide and do the best for yourself, your family, and the staff/employees (dare I say country) you're responsible for. I'll be direct. I don't mince words. It's not a time for abstract meanings. We need concrete action. We need it now!

I beg you: STAY AT HOME AND SELF-ISOLATE! 

My wife, my 5-year-old son, and I are already doing it for two weeks! That's when we took the initiative (my wife being a well-informed Shanghai national who is aware of the danger of the virus). We kept our kid away from Kindergarten, canceled a trip to Dubai, and declined consulting assignments that would require work done on location. The monetary aspect was easy to decide upon compared to developing an engaging daily routine for our little one that doesn't resort to parking him in front of the television all day. We rationed our supplies (a diet was overdue anyway), and only one person goes out to buy what's needed (that's me, wearing a face mask). Let me repeat: What's required! Nothing more. We're in this together and only get out of it together. If you believe you're a leader who can motivate, now is the time to show it and set an example against the social norm and naysayers!

Let me explain why drastic measures now, taken by everybody, will help medical staff at the front line, as well as our society and interconnected global businesses. Everybody is talking about "flattening the curve." Coincidentally, the curve was everywhere after Tomas Pueyo posted his article "Coronavirus: Why You Must Act Now" on Medium. Politicians like to pick up on things like that when they run out of ideas. What they don't show though, if you pay attention, is the numbers on the axes. How much the curve has to flatten to give medical staff and governments more time. The media only report the known cases of infected and inherently disregard what's important: How fast the virus is spreading! How long it can survive on a smooth surface (3 days on metals!), how far it can travel if somebody sneezes in front of you (8 meters!), how long it can linger in your body's tissue before either infecting you or dying off (6-12 hours), how long you won't even know you're infected (7-14 days). Most worrying, how fast it can kill you if you're unlucky or have a pre-condition (within another 14 days).

Only last Monday, 9th March 2020, when our family was already locked down, with the number of infected in the lower 4-digit figures in Germany, the media reported proudly that 54,302 visitors watched a football game between VfB Stuttgart and Arminia Bielefeld. Two days later, mass events were cut to 1,000 attendees, with many venues acting "smartly" by limiting ticket sales to 999. Obviously, Germany isn't aware of Patient 31 and more interested in its soccer games, and other cultural events such as a unified call by German party Die Linke to "fight in Berlin for women' rights" at a demonstration that attracted no less than 20,000 the day before the soccer game. Stupid is as stupid does. For comparison, Wuhan went on lockdown after they identified roughly 400 cases.

Did I mention: SOCIAL DISTANCING IS THE ONLY WAY TO STOP COVID-19

Hand washing and masks will only get you so far. We need Draconian measures, and we must enforce them. Willingly. Take your annual holiday; if you're a manager give staff time off; if you run a company, allow your employees to work from home; if needed, accept salary cuts to keep the business and your job afloat. Win time. This is not over in a couple of weeks. We're in it for the long haul. The cost for society and every business will be higher if we wait! In Germany, schools and Kindergarten only closed today on 16th March 2020! Way too late. Everybody can be a transmitter, everybody has to take action and self-isolate! It's stupid to post on LinkedIn that "our staff is at your service in this crisis" and show a Deutsche Telekom shop with its staff hugging each other. What message are you communicating? Wouldn't it be better and more responsible to say sorry, but we've limited resources for your security and show a clerk with a facemask instead of five employees in a tight embrace and smiling awkwardly? Or this recent example of ride-sharing company nextbike offering free bikes during the crisis, completely ignoring the fact that the virus can survive on metal surfaces up to 3 days! Germans are stubborn and slow to react in a crisis. Years of bureaucracy, incompetent leadership, and a complacent social welfare system are to blame. But that's another story.

Let's come back to the curve and the number of reported cases. Both are unimportant. As stressed above, the curve doesn't show any values in all these fancy animations you see on television. Did you ask yourself how far the curve has to flatten without strict self-isolation? I base the answer on the second number that nobody talks about: the unknown cases. If you weren't asleep on 13th February 2020, you might have noticed a jump in China's reported cases from 44,000 to 60,000 in one day alone! The leap was an adjustment to include people that were showing flu symptoms without a definite diagnosis. The first step to address the significant unknown variable of unknown cases in China at the time. The risk of infection is increasing exponentially, because the number of infected people, most will not show symptoms, is doubling at the moment every three days. Every three days! 

Before we do the math, let me reiterate: SELF-ISOLATE TODAY AND SHOW RESPONSIBILITY!

There's an estimate by Harvard Medical School in the range of 50-100 cases that go unreported for each known diagnosed person. Think about that. As I'm posting this, Germany has 6,000 reported cases. Backtracking to last week's soccer game when the number of known infected was 1,500, we can substantiate the claim above that the numbers of infected doubles every three days: 1,500 on Monday - 3,000 on Thursday - 6,000 on Sunday. Here's my forecast: By Thursday, 19th March 2020, Germany will have 12,000+ reported cases! From there, just go through your calendar and measure the impact of your irresponsibility if you don't

GO INTO LOCKDOWN WITH YOUR LOVED ONES AT HOME NOW!

Health Minister Jens Spahn assures the public that Germany has sufficient beds to treat patients. More than other countries. Unfortunately, his math is as bad as prime minister Angela Merkel's who told German media last week that "60%-70% of the German population will get infected." Nobody questioned that statement, but its inherent meaning is: 80M population in Germany x 4% chance of infection (assuming self-isolation as done in China) = 3.2M carriers in Germany alone. Then take the average mortality rate of 5%, and you'll have under my best-case scenario around 160,000 people dying of COVID-19 in Germany alone before this is over. Now you know why I talked about my approach to business models in the introduction. Because of this, I base the average percentages on China's fast (at least once they admitted that there's a problematic virus spreading around) and effective immediate response. They didn't have soccer games and demonstrations once the number of sick people hit 400!

STAY AT HOME, BECAUSE GERMAN HOSPITALS HAVE NOT SUFFICIENT BEDS NOR DOCTORS!

There we go. I've said it. Truth is that we don't have "sufficient hospital beds and proper care." Why? Because instead of the reported cases of 6,000, we're already looking at (taking Harvard Medical School's estimate as a best-case) 6,000 x 50 = 300,000 infected virus carriers across Germany! That's the number we need to look at and keep in mind: Reported cases x 50! My personal worst case that I'd be planning for in Mr. Spahn's position? For me, it's 6k x 100 = 600,000 transmitters as of today in Germany alone. As I look outside my window there're five kids playing. One of them, a little girl aged 4 is coughing horribly. Her mum is sitting with another mum on a bench nearby browsing her mobile and asking the girl "Darling, do you want some water to drink?" Water won't help. Action will. Extreme social distancing will. We're talking about 600,000 infected as of today. That's almost 1% of the population. If your company has 100 staff, one of them is likely spreading the virus to 3 other colleagues right now! If that one is you, you will be the cause of somebody's suffering. This is exponential math. The government reports only the known cases because they don't want you to freak out. I don't want that either. I want you to face reality, break your behavior, and

STAY AT HOME!

Not everybody infected will need treatment in an intensive care unit. When we (in Germany) talk about "sufficient beds," we refer to some 28,000 beds in ICU's across the country. That's it: 28,000. Not more. Most of which, let's stress that point, are occupied. Unless we kick out the patients in need of critical care for other reasons than COVID-19 we're looking at, what? My estimate, taking the experience of my father's death last year: 20% are free. That's 5,600 beds in ICU in Germany waiting for critical infected. Each one will need that bed for 4-5 weeks! Plus, the lifesaving respirator, of which each hospital has typically only around 3-5 available (because, for example, lung cancer patients need them too). My projection, again based on China's figures, is that 10% (best) to 15% (worst) of infected will need that ICU bed and respirator to survive. Which puts the now infamous quote of an Italian doctor into perspective when he said last week already that staff has to decide on who lives and dies each day. Doing the math for Germany under my best-case scenario: 300,000 infected x 10% = 30,000 patients in need of a bed in a German intensive care unit that comes with a respirator! Oh my, Mr. Spahn.

Therefore: STAY AT HOME UNTIL YOU NEED TREATMENT!

And let's not talk about the prevalent shortage of nurses and doctors in German hospitals, which is a known fact for years and something I had to experience firsthand during those arduous times last year. Already Chinese medical students are leaving back home. As do foreign doctors working in German hospitals. Understandably, their solidarity is with their family. And family is back home. Those who are German or stay will have to work 24/7. And it won't be enough. If you don't want yourself or anybody else to get a lifesaving operation, any surgery carried out by a doctor who is working 18h shifts for 7 days for months (that's what we're looking at) then, please

DO YOURSELF AND OTHERS A FAVOR: SELF-ISOLATE!

If you don't, then the numbers I presented above will be much, much higher. Which means more suffering and death. You, your family members, your friend, your colleagues, the friendly cashier, the helpful doctor, or nurse. Your decision now will impact our lives tomorrow.

THE ONE THAT STAYED AWAY SAVED THEM ALL.

BE THE ONE!