“We don’t rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training.”
American politicians and bureaucrats at all levels of government have fallen to the level of socialism, with the FDA blocking creators, with the monopolistic CDC bungling what creators would otherwise do well, with administrators of socialized medicine producing equal shortages for all, and with elected officials issuing indiscriminate stay-at-home orders and financial bailouts as if digits in checking accounts will produce and deliver food.
At the same time, many American citizens are falling to the level of blindly following government or blindly defying government.
Thankfully, many Americans are prepared for a crisis, have used their own independent judgment to grasp the threat, and are acting to solve the problem.
I am not on the frontlines of treating the sick, keeping supply lines intact, or finding a cure. But I am doing a few basic things to be part of the solution, not the problem. I do these things not because government bureaucrats tell me to, but because these things are rational and ethical.
It does not take an epidemiologist to know that infectious diseases spread exponentially. If the average infected person infects two others, then in ten cycles one person will infect a thousand others, and in twenty cycles one person will infect a million others. In that respect, a thousand is halfway from one to a million. But if the average person infects half a person, then in twenty cycles one million new infections reduce to one.
Hospitals in many parts of the world, and in some parts of the U.S., are already overrun with patients seriously ill with this disease, and many have already died. I don’t have to be a scientist to know that the storm is coming to my town unless my fellow citizens and I take precautions. I know that my small town is particularly vulnerable because we are home to a large university run by pliant government bureaucrats.
My modest personal goals are these:
1.a. Don’t do something careless that will cause me to occupy a precious hospital bed or die.
1.b. Don’t do something careless that will cause others to occupy precious hospital beds or die.
I don’t follow CDC guidelines. The CDC is one of the main bunglers, along with the FDA, in this crisis. The CDC bungled its production of a test—for almost two months—that could have stopped this virus cold in its early stage of spread. The FDA, for its part, forbade private companies to test while the CDC bungled.
Even when the CDC is on the right track, its guidance is dumbed down to speak to the lowest common denominator of the citizenry. Only now, after many months, is the CDC suggesting that people wear masks. Evidently, the CDC thought that most citizens were too dumb to learn how safely to “don and doff” a mask. I don’t follow the CDC’s dumbed down guidelines. I follow my own, stricter guidelines.
These days, my only need to get into close quarters with others would be to help a friend in need. If I have to do that, I will follow some simple rules.
In the absence of enough tests for the virus, I know that common early symptoms, not readily noticed, are fever and loss of sense of smell. So, before I would leave my house to interact with others, I would take my temperature and try to smell something. If I had a fever or loss of sense of smell, I would stay home. If I had more obvious symptoms, such as a cough, I would stay home. Otherwise, I would wash my hands, put on a mask, put a bottle of hand sanitizer or 70% alcohol in my pocket, and go out and do what I had to do.
These rules are not fool-proof. But they bend the effective reproductive factor of the virus in our favor.
Gun owners learn simple rules of safety for handling firearms. We follow these rules not because government tells us to. And if the government did tell us to follow rules–dumber rules–we would not protest by defying all rules or downplaying their importance. We would stick to the rules we know make sense. The same common sense and common decency apply to fighting this virus.