The World Depends on Your being Rational

Three months ago, no one knew that SARS-CoV-2 existed. Now the virus has spread to almost every country, and may eventually infect some 3 millions people and perhaps – God forbids killing10 % of them. A scary thought indeed. Most people you talk with are either panicking or resigning to helplessness. Your TV screens and news outlets continue to convey vividly the messages of frustration over broken health-care systems, filled hospitals and emptied public spaces. This is a classic example of a wicked problem where we don’t know much of what we don’t know. Actions to lockdown countries have led unemployment, broken economies, and some international institutions even predicted a global recession far worse that the one in the 1930s (not that it can be compare quite apple to apple given what they described as the world of economy back then comprises mostly of the Western economies and their colonies). Never-the-less the current pandemic has indeed disrupted modern society on a scale that most living people have never witnessed and this pandemic has already imprinted itself upon the world’s psyche.

So is it time to panic, to start second-guessing the intentions of our governments, blame the WHO, hoard all goodies you can get your hands on, steer away from any outside activities and drop immediately whatever you are doing, and plan for the worst economic slump ever known to mankind? I don’t think so. I am not saying that you should ignore safe distancing, face mask wearing, staying fit by consuming the right nutrition but I believe that the most beneficial things to is to remain measured and as rational as one would when facing any other either human or man made calamities. And yes, we have had plenty of those:

About 5,000 years ago, an epidemic wiped out a prehistoric village in China. The bodies of the dead were stuffed inside a house that was later burned down. No age group was spared, as the skeletons of juveniles, young adults and middle-age people were found inside the house. The archaeological site is now called "Hamin Mangha" and is one of the best-preserved prehistoric sites in northeastern China.

In the 1300sThe Black Death traveled from Asia to Europe, leaving devastation in its wake. Some estimates suggest that it wiped out over half of Europe's population. It was caused by a strain of the bacterium Yersinia pestis that is likely extinct today and was spread by fleas on infected rodents. The bodies of victims were buried in mass graves.

The 16th century American Plagues are a cluster of Eurasian diseases brought to the Americas by European explorers. These illnesses, including smallpox, contributed to the collapse of the Inca and Aztec civilizations. Some estimates suggest that 90% of the indigenous population in the Western Hemisphere was killed off.

In the modern industrial age, new transport links made it easier for influenza viruses to wreak havoc. In just a few months, the disease spanned the globe, killing 1 million people. It took just five weeks for the epidemic to reach peak mortality.

Those and many others plaques and calamities have cost the human race dearly but the longer term impact has been less detrimental to the advancement of the human race than any ruin to human livelihoods due to economic collapses. The impact of the Great Depression that took place mostly between 1929 and 1932 was so severe worldwide gross domestic product (GDP) fell by an estimated 15%. Some economies started to recover by the mid-1930s. However, in many countries, the negative effects of the Great Depression lasted until the beginning of World War II.

The Great Depression had devastating effects in both rich and poor countries. Personal income, tax revenue, profits and prices dropped, while international trade fell by more than 50%. Unemployment in the U.S. rose to 23% and in some countries rose as high as 33%. The unemployment figure within just 3 months of the Covid-19 scare has reached at least half of that % around the world, and with a world population of over 7 billion people today the actual number is most likely to be much higher than any recorded during the 1930s depression.

So is this all about being cautious, about putting human well being over economic activities? Is economic and countries lockdown and stoppage the best exemplar of human decency and advance morality? Well, I am not very sure about that. If you go around asking the medical doctors and nurses caring for patient day-in-day-out, night-in-night-out – often with limited PPE - around the world the answer would be overwhelmingly yes. The shortage in hospital beds, PPEs, and able personnel has understandably created a maximum pressure and absolute fears of these great people. We are not wired to tolerate uncertainty – and these are the most uncertain of times. The human brain is not wired to tolerate uncertainty, but it is wired to be alert to any threat. So, if you are feeling pandemic panic, it is only natural. For most of us, life has never felt more uncertain, and uncertainty is, according to a 2016 study by neuroscientists at University College London, an even more stressful state to be in than actually knowing something bad will happen.

But while increased anxiety is only natural, we can all adopt strategies to control it Just over a week ago, our world looked very different from how it does today. The shift has been so rapid and frightening, it feels as if the ground beneath us has given way. It is disorienting, as if normal life is just over there, out of reach. I have been through two major bereavements, close together, and this has the same unanchored feeling of grief. According to Robert Leahy, the director of the American Institute for Cognitive Therapy and author of The Worry Cure, we are all locked in “an international human trauma, where everybody has a sense that their life, or the lives of people they love, is threatened”. When we are anxious, he says: “We tend to equate uncertainty with the worst outcome. For example, after 9/11, we heard so many people say it’s inevitable that there’s going to be another major attack on New York City, or a nuclear attack by al-Qaida. That never happened. When we’re anxious, we tend to treat the uncertainty as a bad outcome. But uncertainty is neutral – we don’t know what’s going to happen.”

We can look to what has happened in other countries with understandable horror, but we can also hold on to the fact that measures such as testing, social distancing, quarantining and travel restrictions seem to have some effect, and that at some point, there will be potential treatments. None of this is to underplay the seriousness of the pandemic, and the many lives that have already and will be lost. But the point is that at the moment, nobody really knows what is going to happen. Most of us crave stability. “We want predictability,” says Daniel Freeman, a professor of clinical psychology at the University of Oxford. “We want to be assured that the way our world looks when we get up in the morning is the way it will look when we go to bed. And if change occurs, we prefer it to be on our terms.” But sometimes life has other ideas.

The point I want to make here is that humanity will prevail. We need to continue to think rationally and make decisions not what if the world collapses in a few months-time but more important what if it is not. The latter is much more likely given that this is neither the first nor will it be the last challenges us humans will have deal with. Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do. We all need more people to remain strong, positive and rational to realise our common goal for a global sustainable development. What is going to remain for years to come after this COVID 19 becomes manageable is that many people will be wearing face mask when they catch a cold or feeling under the weather. The world will adopt higher sanitation standard, and hopefully, we would also realise that there are still many people around the world who cannot do either frequent hand washing because they have limited access to clean water nor implement physical distancing when they live in a slump, cramped houses with 2 generations or more living under the same roofs. They way these people live has to be a major concern for the haves and the better-off among us because there is no way you can ensure a good public health when there are so many people around living hand to mouth.

To transform concern to action, from knowing to acting require resources. These resources can only come to our possession if we are able to rationally deal with our fear even during the scariest of time. Let the experts work on the medical solutions – countries and billionaires will be busy competing on who will get the first medication to be patented; support your local medical staffs with the PPEs and whatever others they need and you can afford to give but we must also do our bit to continue to do our best to contribute to the business of wealth and job creations for our people and country.