Coronavirus Thoughts

If there has ever been a good time to begin a blog, the current coronavirus lockdown is it. The abundant free time inflicted by the stay-at-home order means that my already limited self-control is strained far beyond capacity. On a typical day, my schedule is imposed by my duties, but with classes being over, work ending (for the most part), and most forms of entertainment being off-limits, I am faced with the unpleasant chore of actually having to choose to be productive. Over the previous two months, I have been spectacularly unsuccessful at accomplishing anything of meaning, so this blog is my attempt at rescuing something valuable from this wasted time.

At the risk of beating a dead horse into a bloody pulp, I want to begin this blog by discussing what I feel has been one of the major takeaways from the Covid-19 pandemic: the fact that nobody knows the future. This truth has been borne out by the host of contradictory predictions which the coronavirus disaster has generated: the constantly shifting estimates of the death toll, the hope/despair for a treatment or a vaccine, the effectiveness/ineffectiveness of quarantine and masks, and even the baby-boom forecast.

To take the last example, spikes in the birth rate have followed previous disaster events like 9/11, Hurricane Sandy, and the 2014 Buffalo blizzard, yet some experts are predicting that the coronavirus lockdown will not produce a similar baby-boom.[1] Referring to the 2007 Recession, these experts point out that the economic uncertainty of the coronavirus pandemic may even lead to a decrease in the birth rate. However, there are some major differences between the 2007 Recession and this current crisis, the most important of which is the fact that the 2007 Recession did not lead to a substantial percentage of the population remaining locked in their homes for over two months. I am not saying that there will or will not be a baby-boom in seven months, I am merely saying that in this case, there is evidence to support both conclusions.

In the case of a baby-boom prediction, the so-called experts are making educated guesses about the future. When we are talking about a product with as many variables as the birth rate during a pandemic, making a correct prediction can be extremely difficult. In order to accomplish such a feat, one must be able to pick out all of the relevant data from a vast cloud of possibly relevant material. Moreover, it is very difficult for the rest of us to determine who actually knows which data is relevant and can make additional correct predictions about the future verses those who are merely lucky in their guesses.  

This points to a difficult epistemological fact: unless we know all of the variables involved, no event can be KNOWN until it has occurred. Our confidence in a given prediction can increase as we learn more about an event and as the number of trials increases, but we still cannot KNOW an event until after the fact since we can never in practice know all of the variables involved in producing a given event. Some have even argued that if some entity such as Laplace’s demon could have knowledge of all variables, it would in actuality know nothing since it would be impossible to pick out the few meaningful events and objects in the universe from the vast amount of meaningless known data.[2]

In the case of the correct response to the Covid-19 pandemic, it is eminently clear that there are many unknown variables in the spread and transmission of the disease, which means that it is very hard to predict the correct actions to take in combatting coronavirus. When we also have experts and data supporting both action and non-action, as we do for many of the strategies which have been imposed to prevent the spread of coronavirus, it is nearly impossible to determine the correct strategy.

All of this should be obvious, but if you turn to most media outlets you would likely come away with the impression that there is broad scientific consensus on the appropriate response to coronavirus: wash your hands, social distance (verb not noun), stay at home if you are not an essential worker. However, only one of these actions has been rigorously tested and shown to be effective in preventing the spread of viruses: hand washing. It is likely that social distancing and quarantines do limit the spread of coronavirus, but are those strategies effective in the long-term? Coronavirus will not go away if we continue to try to wait it out and it is possible that by slowing down our acquisition of herd immunity, we are doing greater damage and increasing its death toll.[3] Unless we can acquire a vaccine within the next few months, the Swedish approach may prove to have been the appropriate response to Covid-19. But we will only know this in retrospect when we look back on the different strategies which have been used and compare them with one another.

I am not advocating for any particular strategy in dealing with coronavirus. I am merely trying to point out that the appropriate response to something as complicated and as new as coronavirus is impossible to know with certainty prior to putting it into practice. Only after we have responded to the coronavirus will we be able to look back at our efforts and conclude that they were either effective or ineffective. However, if a single body of experts assumes that it has all of the necessary data and imposes a single approach on everyone, we lose the ability to compare and contrast opposing strategies. Allowing individuals the freedom to choose their own response may seem to be risky, but it increases the chances that the most effective strategy will be discovered. It could be argued that the external risks of allowing everyone to choose their own response are too great, since individual decisions can have drastic and even life-threatening consequences on others; but I find this idea unsatisfying since those who are at risk can always choose the strategy which is safest for them, namely quarantine.

One of the problems with a pluralistic response to Covid-19 is that it requires a body of people who are capable of self-governance; many people are more comfortable in following the orders of a body of experts than in making their own decisions when it comes to something as potentially dangerous as Covid-19. But this is the beauty of a classically liberal attitude: people can choose to listen to mainstream epidemiologists and virologists if they want to… or they can choose to go their own way. When this is all over, we can look back and see whose approach was more effective and learn lessons for the future.

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[1] Catherine E. Shoichet. "Why These Experts Don't Think We'll See a Coronavirus Baby Boom." CNN. Last modified April 4, 2020. https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/04/us/baby-boom-coronavirus-demographics/index.html.

[2] Michael Polanyi, Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962.

[3] "Why Severe Social Distancing Might Actually Result in More Coronavirus Deaths." The Federalist. Last modified April 3, 2020. https://thefederalist.com/2020/04/03/why-severe-social-distancing-might-actually-result-in-more-coronavirus-deaths/.