The Expected Unexpected - A COVID Conundrum

There are an enormous number of things that we could all learn from COVID. However, based upon other topics and issues that we have experienced before COVID I am not personally optimistic about the prospects that the readily available lessons will be learned. This may simply be nothing more than the consequences of the collective societal genetics expressing their influences and natural selection process. Now, do not think this is a depressive perspective; it is not. While perhaps difficult to recognize it as an optimistic outlook; it is just that the optimism is more dependent upon a broader and longer-term perspective.

There are many adages, fables, stories, and proverbs that attest to the concept that as events play out the results are dependent upon the choices and actions that one takes. The expression: “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” Is commonly cited by individuals and groups that have or will be facing some challenge. It is fundamentally an evolved version of Darwin’s theory of “Natural Selection” and the notion of “survival of the fittest”. These examples are not intended to be unsympathetic or uncompassionate regarding the tragic and devastating consequences to individuals, families, communities, and nations. Those very consequences are the exact reasons that as individuals and societies we ought to be much more aware of and prepared to respond much more effectively than we have demonstrated we are being with the COVID pandemic. It does not matter what factors or affiliations are introducing noise and misinformation into the process, what is important is acting and responding to achieve whatever goals are desired or identified as necessary.

This raises an interesting question. What are the stated goals and consequences that are to be achieved for COVID? This may seem like a rather naïve question but consider that our political leaders clearly do not agree on a set of goals nor on the consequences that are acceptable. This situation has been true from the beginning of the pandemic. The political divisiveness in the US has produced a disorganized, disruptive, and dangerous set of conflicting policies, processes, and performances. These divergent differences may be useful in obtaining the valuable data that our polarized political conditions have produced, since these differences have created the experimental sub-groups needed to assess and analyze this natural experiment and learn the value or harm caused by those differences. A recent report indicates that one differential factor that is producing differential consequences is “conservative” versus “progressive” or “non-conservative” communities (districts). This is a valuable difference in the results that COVID is having because there is no reason (or no known reason) that a factor like ‘political alignment’ would produce a difference in the outcomes of a viral biological infection. So, whatever the causal linkage is there must be one, which is why the collection, analysis and reporting on what can be learned is important. This knowledge can then be used to set better goals, policies, processes, and narratives to accomplish the goals being set.

I want to point out that the results which the nation is seeing could be either a failure to understand and competently use the lessons that our self-created natural experiment has and is creating; or it may be the case that at least some of the results are a consequence of what is being learned from the data. Personally, I am more inclined to believe that we are not learning what we can, than that those in our political leadership positions are sufficiently capable to translate the data, the analysis, or the lessons into more effectives strategies for reaching whatever goals they are seeking to accomplish.

One adage that would often be presented in such situations is: “You get what you pay for.” I don’t disagree with this principle, but I find it to be often misunderstood and to a degree easily used in a circular reasoning context. I offer a very unfamiliar corollary to that expression: “You pay for what you get.” I prefer this perspective because it is a more proactive sentiment attributing a “cause and effect” principle to how one chooses. It is also very applicable to political contexts.

Consider how the choices made by voters have put into place political leaders that have established their individual states’ policies on COVID and the results that have been produced under those policies. There are clearly things that can be learned from these different leaders’ approaches. There are the prices “you pay” for the politicians you elect (“you get”). You can’t blame everything that happens just on the politicians; however, if there are sufficient and aligned differences there is some reason(s) that is worth understanding.