Pandemic musings

Current pandemic dialogue rests on an essentially mathematical argument being put by non-mathematicians. In other words, the information sources that the world is relying on for their sense of alarm and/or safety are not capable of understanding the information they are interpreting.

 

This is not really that new a problem. Take for instance the doctrine of evolution, which is actually quite germaine to the the pandemic arguments. Here is a doctrine (scientific, albeit) that purports to explain origins by relying on current observation. This is somewhat like trying to figure out who arrived first at a party by observing the behavior of guests a year later. The problem is not that the observations are unreliable or perhaps irrelevant. Rather it is that too much time has intervened to confound the data. Even if arrival time at last year's party irrevocably influences today's behavior, so might many other equally germaine preceding and subsequent events by the time of the scientific, e.g., current, observations. In fact, mathematicians might shudder if we argued about arrival times based on departure times from the very same party.

 

Statistics of prediction attempt to forecast likelihoods of future events by examining past patterns in steady state or similarly conditioned environments. With questions of pandemic disease, I would assert that this is as much a game as an art or a skill. The confounding variables include such issues as increased funding for the scientists who make the most marketable predictions, political survival and risk for those who might be blamed for catastrophes, and the vulnerability of the powerful in our world to fear of losing power. (Americans might do well to remember both Nixon and Clinton.) Human factors in such games can have far greater impact when a group of people make up the rules for the game than anything in the patterns themselves.

 

So as one reasonably qualified to assert some level of mathematical training in model building, statistical analysis, and human science research with no axe to grind, how do I read the reports? (First, you must suspend your judgment as to whether I am so qualified or merely pretentious, but haven't you had to do this with every other word you've read regarding the pandemic? Then you must do the same regarding whether I (or any other human) have an axe to grind! The more cynical might simply observe we all have axes, the question is, "Why are we grinding them now?")

 

Here are some short observations:

 

1) There is no human ability to forestall epidemic disease, only the ability to react to it with more or less effect. Consequently, we do well to acknowledge that disease remains one of the major risks of life, and that disease is not just an individual concern, but also a community-wide concern, and to the extent our community is global, a global concern.

 

2) Preparedness for epidemic disease has not been effective for unknown threats. The desire to be prepared for a disease that has not yet arrived is a heroic, but largely novel effort. It has to be exciting for medical scientists to imagine that they might be able to stop disease before it arrives. It seems to me this would be a next great thing.

 

3) Efforts so far to respond to the "H5N1 A bird flu" have not inspired confidence. Aside from a re-engineering of the way humans interact with birds, akin to a reengineering of the way humans interact with petroleum, it seems likely that H5N1 will follow its own course with little alteration due to human interventions.

 

4) Pandemic disease is alleged to break out once a generation--every 30-40 years. By these statistics, the actual likelihood of a pandemic each season is closer to 3% than to the 10% some have predicted. This is about the same likelihood as a globally significant armed conflict. In a cold-hearted way, death is as significant personally whether it comes from heart disease, a car accident, or suicide.

 

5) The real impact of pandemic disease is as much economic as medical. What governments most fear is that the world economy will be rearranged, to the detriment of the current order, as that they personally will face death. From this perspective, there ought to be a continuing debate about whether a just-in-time reaction or a preparatory vigilance to avert what may be an unavoidable crisis would be more expensive.

 

So if these things are somewhat true, what are the implications for me?

 

1) Preparation doesn't hurt me much, as long as someone else is doing it. If I do it, it hurts me to the extent that it distracts or disables me from addressing other more relevant concerns. Perhaps the last big crisis for which our communities mobilized ahead of time based on media-fed and individually mediated senses of urgency was the millenium computer crisis.

 

2) Crises will come, whether to a person, a family, a community, or even a global village. The best preparation for risk is risk-general preparation, not risk-specific. Preparing for the things all crises have in common is more effective than preparing for any single risk. Allocating a small amount of total resources toward crisis management as a whole is prudent, but is not likely to forestall a crisis.

 

3) If I want to worry about bird flu, I should give it a "fair share" of my worry, along with such other minor threats as terrorism, car accidents, and cancer. I should give much bigger shares of my "total concern load" to such things as growing old, eating and sleeping well, paying my current and future obligations, and loving my neighbors.

 

Disclaimer: I nor anyone else may stand by the comments in this blog by tomorrow...