Outbreak Diary - Day 018

I'll be the first to tell you that morality is, by definition, subjective. A rock cannot be good or evil, because a rock is an object and has no will, it is amoral - and if a quality is reliant upon will and a thinking agent (a subject), it must be subjective. But, that doesn't change the fact that we can reach a general consensus, a kind of "agreed upon opinion" - this is essentially what people mean when they say common sense, they're referring to this vague, consensual group-opinion.
So, morality can seem objective, even though it isn't, because there are so few opponents of the group opinion, that they become "exceptions that prove the rule".

What the hell does this have to do with coronavirus? Well, a lot, as it turns out. Discussions of coronavirus talk about the curve - here in Australia we often talk about "flattening the curve". When people say that, they're referring to a graph representing the cases of coronavirus.
Now, it seems that the specific graph in question has changed, to "the curve of new cases of persons that are suffering from the virus", which has gone down. I blame journalists for changing the focus. Although the two tend to correlate, the graph for new cases changes more noticeably. It's harder to report on something slow and gradual and make it seem "immediate" and "exciting", so they switched to statistics that fluctuate more drastically. But, when we actually talk about the cumulative cases, we see exactly what people mean by "flattening the curve".

source: https://www.flattenthecurve.com/covid-19/

You have probably seen this online, or perhaps even on the news, as they talk about COVID-19. The idea is simple, that if we take measures to prevent the spread of this virus, then less people will become infected with the disease, but if we don't more people will be come infected. Therefore the curve in this graph becomes more flat.
Do you know what that sounds like to me? Because it has a familiar ring to it...
Have your heard of the Trolley Problem?

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem

Also known as the Train Problem, in the scenario, you are a man standing at the fork of the tracks of a railed vehicle (i.e. a train, tram, trolley, etc), which is currently headed for five people (i.e. rail workers, a passenger car, a lost family, etc.) who for some reason (i.e. a tunnel, deafness, speed of the vehicle, etc.) will be hit and killed by the train. You have the ability to switch the tracks, to another line, however there is a single person (i.e. a rail worker, a fat man, a deaf wanderer) on this track. The problem is thus: Would you take action, knowing one person will die, if through inaction five people will die?

The actual purpose of this ethical question is to determine schools of moral thought, specifically Deontology and Utilitarianism. I won't go into great detail, and this is a little simplified, but generally deontology is reliant upon choice and motive, specifically the value of a subject's actions (i.e. the act itself is judged); whereas utilitarianism is more concerned with utility and benefit, specifically the result of a subject's actions (i.e. the consequences are judged).
The argument is simple, that premature death is not good, therefore the act of killing is categorically wrong (so the act itself has no moral value) therefore taking an act that results in a death is wrong - therefore, you must not switch the lever.
However, if premature death is immoral, then a result that leads to five premature deaths, as opposed to one, should be considered five-times worse (so a result of five deaths has less moral value than a result of one death) therefore taking no action that results in five deaths is wrong - therefore, you must switch the lever.

Now, let's look at Coronavirus, because moral philosophy can give you a stomach ache if you look at it too long...

We have a situation which is remarkably similar. This is a naturally-occuring virus, no one is the cause (not even a runaway train) and it will result in the random deaths of a great many people, if allowed to spread freely through the world's population. If we did nothing, then many people would die, but they would die because of something in nature - insurance companies and gullible people might call it an Act of God, but either way it is an act of nature, no one is to blame.
However, if we choose to act, we willingly put a great many people out of work and alter the freedoms everyone takes for granted, and we know that many people will die nonetheless, but we know for a fact that the resultant deaths will be a much greater deal less.

Now, I don't know if it is five times less. From what I've seen, it's probably a lot higher than that (and we're talking orders of magnitude), but this crisis isn't over yet, so we won't know the consequences until much later.
But, nonetheless, it seems to quite easily prove my point, that despite there being several schools of thought, Kantian ethics and the categorical imperative has been utterly pulverized by utilitarian thought. We're taking a deliberate, harmful action - which indirectly leads to a portion of people dying, and directly leads to financial, cultural & social hardship. Yet, not only have many people embraced it, but some governments have been criticized for not embracing it fully, properly, or quick enough.


There is one small snag in this comparison, however... and that is the switch. See, the switch in the trolley problem is binary (on or off). This is a hypothetical question, but even if you could attempt to hold the lever in the middle, no man's hands are strong enough to derail a train, tram or trolley, so the train will follow a path nonetheless.
But, with coronavirus, there is actually a spectrum of possibilities to choose from- the downside being that through our actions, we are effectively choosing how many people we would like to die, instead of all.
If we had taken no action, approximately 60% of people could become infected, approximately 4% of which will die (approx. 168,000,000 people [168 million]).

[Author's Note: These are generous estimates, as currently, 0.02% of the world is infected, 5.8% of which have died (approximately 88,500 recorded deaths, at time of writing).]

Now, I am no mathematician or statistician, so if someone has better numbers than me, let me know. But, based off of projected "peaks" for coronavirus cases, and assuming a decline in cases that reflects it, we're looking at...
Current best case scenario is, approximately 0.1% of people become infected, approximately 4% of which will die (approx. 280,000 people [280 thousand]).

So, our switch isn't binary, there's not two choices "do or do not". There are over 160 million potential outcomes. Through every action we take or do not take regarding the spread of this virus, we are making a choice of how many more people, than ~280,000 deaths will occur.
With that in mind, I hope all of you stay home for Easter... I'm not exactly a fan of dying, but 280,000 deaths is enough in my opinion. What do you think? The choice is yours.

I'm the Absurd Word Nerd, and I have been hearing a lot of conspiracy theories regarding coronavirus lately, so I'm going to see what I can learn about these. Until Next Time, stay home, stay safe and enjoy your domestic Easter festivities.

Outbreak Diary - Day 013

As a writer, and hospitality worker, I have used Job Service Providers and Centrelink quite a few times in my life. I'm sure a lot more people are beginning to learn just how convoluted, bureaucratic and frustrating working with a government facility can be. Now, I do not blame the staff, because often they are just as frustrated with the system as we are - and with rare exception, they're all doing the best they can.

My favourite example of this happened a long time ago. I cannot remember the reason why, but I was asking for clarification about an issue (I think I had been told I had reported when I actually hadn't, or something like that).
I was talking to one of the service centre staff, and I said to him "I'm sorry, but I don't understand how this makes sense". He chuckled, and said to me:
"Well, that's your first problem. You're looking at this logically, but this is the Government we're talking about."
That man did go on to help me, and he did very effectively - by ignoring the reality, and telling the system what it expected to hear, I fixed the problem. That's always stuck with me, not only because it shows that some of the staff find this system as laughable as I do, but also because it helped me understand. So, to anyone frustrated with these JobSeeker/JobKeeper Allowances, I hope that helps you understand a little better and empathize with the staff working there - but, I'm not actually here to talk about Centrelink today.

I want to talk a little about contradiction, because it's something I'm seeing lately. Partially from the government - at least I thought so - but, mostly from the news. The government I can cover quickly, because there's less to this story than I thought.

Holy Days & Church as a Service

To begin with, Easter Holidays started yesterday here in Queensland. It started a little earlier in some other states, for no reason I can see except some attempt to close schools despite a national declaration to keep them open, but that's not what's important. What's important is that Easter Sunday is over a week from now, April 12th (2020).

In response, we were told that churches were having their restrictions relaxed, during Easter, so that churches could hold Easter services. To me, that's a pretty disgusting and despicable act - not only allowing people to congregate en masse during a crisis, but also allowing Churches to do so on Easter, even though Rama Navami the birth of a Hindu god, was on April 2nd (2 days ago); Jewish Passover is four days from now on April 8th; the Theravda New Year is April 9th for Buddhists; April 18th is the birthday of a Sikh guru Angad Dev & Ramadan begins over a week from now, on April 22nd - only the Christians get their holidays recognized?
Sure, I had to look up the dates for those days, I don't even know how they celebrate/commemorate/mourn these days because I don't care about any religious celebration, but I do care about equality and secularism, and a secular country giving any religion special treatment makes me sick to my stomach.

Now, before you worry too much, I looked into it and the Prime Minister clarified his statement recently - churches will not be open over Easter. You still cannot go to church, or any place of worship. The restriction being relaxed is that they will be considered places of business, meaning that churches holding online services can operate like a business, allowing a limited number of people to assist in the operation of their service.
I still don't appreciate that, as churches are not an essential service, and I feel that this should extend to all holidays, and not simply Judeo-Christian ones, but knowing that churches are still closed, and not filling pews with parishioners so as to spread this virus, I am less perturbed than I was when I first heard this story.

So, we're a secular country that reveres one religion over another - contradiction.

The Facemask Question

The second thing that comes to mind is the issue regarding facemasks. Before this virus came to our shores, but just after the virus was discovered in China, people were discussing whether it was appropriate for sick people to wear masks, like many do in Asia. Now, many of our experts came and explained, no, you don't need a mask - social distancing and washing your hands is more effective.

Come to today, where now over a million people have been confirmed to have contracted the virus, and America especially is saturated with cases, so Americans have been advised that they should wear facemasks to avoid spreading the virus (especially in and around New York), and in response now some Australian commentators have brought the question up again. Should we wear facemasks? Will it stop the spread? Why is everyone getting conflicting information?

Before I do, let's talk about Asia for a moment. The reason why Asians - by which I mean the Chinese, Japanese, Korean & Thai peoples - wear surgical masks is, in truth, more superstition than safety (and maybe even a kind of cultural fashion statement). Now, I am not some expert on Asian culture, a lot of what I know comes from a Quartz article by Jeff Yang, you can read that if you like, but in short, a long history of air pollution, and an even longer history of Chinese Folklore including air as a spiritual element (qi), and breathing in regards to meditation and cleanliness moreso than oxygen has lead to peoples around that part of the world to want to filter the air they breath in.
Now, whilst I'm no Asian culture expert, I do know a little about virology and air flow. The first thing you should know is that although coronavirus has a particularly long incubation period, just about every virus has "an incubation period", a brief search tells me it can vary from a day to a year, but all viruses can sit in your body for a while before they are noticed.

Think of it like termites. How often do you see a termite walk into your house? I'm pretty sure that you don't, but it must happen - unless a house is built with termites in the beams, termites must walk into your house at some point, or crawl into your walls. But you don't notice them come in, you only notice once the house starts falling apart, or when you go to clean behind the bookshelf and find a hole.

Your body works the same way - it can't tell when the virus comes in, it only notices when something starts to go wrong, or it bumps into it while doing something routine - it takes a while to tell if someone is sick, you have to wait until you can see symptoms. But, when a person is symptomatic, that's when a sick person is at their least infectious, because they're fighting the virus, killing it off. Sure, they may still get you sick if they sneeze on you, but I wouldn't even want a healthy person sneezing on me, since that's rude and gross.
You may see someone come into the office, coughing on Monday, and say "Keep away from me, I don't want to get sick," then on Friday, you get sick anyway, and think "Damn it, I TOLD them to stay away from me."
The fact is, 99 times out of 100, you didn't catch the virus from them on Monday, you probably caught it from them last week, back when they were infectious, and neither of you knew, so you weren't keeping distant. (This is why, the incubation period is known as the "infectious period" in some circles, although that's only in the case of viruses that spread by breath or skin contact).
This is the reason why social distancing is enforced even if you're "not sick". But, it's also the reason why only "sick" people wearing masks doesn't stop anything, because not all sick people are "sick" until it's too late.

But, what about the American/Asian option? They're wearing masks 24/7, that eliminates that infectious/incubation period if we all wear them all the time, doesn't it?
Well, that's the second issue - facemasks don't stop the spread of viruses.
They can mitigate the spread a little, if used properly, and some facemasks do exist which can prevent any viral infection from getting into or out of your mouth, but these facemasks all have one thing in common - they have an air-filter. The majority of the masks being spread around, especially around Asia, are surgical masks - believe it or not, surgical masks are for the doctor's benefit more than the patient's. Yes, it does prevent them from coughing or spitting onto the patient, but they're designed to stop blood, bodily fluids and viscera from the patient getting into the surgeon's mouth due to an accidental splash, or a cut vein, or one of the many other traumatic, but careful and curative acts of surgery. It's not to stop your breath or vapor droplets - in fact it can't, because the sides of the mask are often left unsecured so that the air the surgeon breaths can get in and out easily.
You're meant to afix the sides of the mask securely around your face, but most people don't bother with the necessary steps of putting on a disposable mask - as outlined by the World Health Organization, because they're not well-designed to fit every face. If you check out that advice, you will notice something as well - these masks are dirty, and in fact can make you sick, if used incorrectly. Once you've worn it for a while, or sneezed or coughed even once, then you will have a warm, slightly moist piece of cloth on your face, which means that it is at a high risk of becoming infectious, which is why you cannot touch a mask that you're wearing. In fact, before use, you should wash/sanitize your hands and afix the mask, and you should replace the mask once it is damp being sure to wash your hands afterwards, so as to not become infected by the soiled mask.
See, using a mask like this is like using a tissue - you use it once, and get rid of it. Leaving it on your face all day is just unsanitary, and can make you sick. It's not a perfect shield that keeps you safe.

Well, what about the air-filtered masks, then? The issue with those is, they are expensive - too expensive to have one for every citizen of an infected community. And even they aren't foolproof - as I said, masks become secure when you afix them to your face so that there are no gaps - meaning that a man with a five-o'clock shadow isn't protected. But, for these masks, and in fact every mask, the reason why we don't spread these amongst people is because essential workers need them. A mask that you're wearing because you are worried that you might get sick by coming near an infected person is a mask that a nurse can't wear, when they will come in contact with an infected person in their care - or its a mask that a family member can't wear when they have to isolate in their home with their children.

But let's set all of that aside for a moment. Maybe you don't care about the world at large - or maybe you care, but you still want to have a mask, or as I call it, "the jetpack argument" - I don't care that jetpacks are expensive and most people can't have them, because I still want one for myself.
Okay, fair enough, let's say that you can afford a proper face-mask with a filter or a respirator, and you plan to use it properly, and you want to wear it to feel safe.
Well, the problem with that is in the very words itself... it makes you feel safe.
The fact of the matter is, you're not safe even if you wear an effective, anti-viral facemask, because breathing in droplets isn't the only way that this virus spreads. It can infect people by coming into contact with food we ingest, or by spreading into the immune system weak-points of our eyes and nose, when we touch our face. Yes, a mask will make you feel safe, but it is a false sense of security.
The fact of the matter is that, except in cases where people cough or sneeze, the vapour droplets breathed by infected people don't travel very far, and tend to fall quickly to the ground or onto surrounding surfaces. Considering that, at time of writing, the rate of cases of COVID-19 infections has reached over 1 million people, it seems unlikely that most of those people happened to breathe in the droplets from someone else's mouth... I admit that that is speculation, but there is evidence to show that this virus can survive outside the body on non-porous surfaces for up to 3 days. And people are more careless when given a false sense of security.

So, why all this nonsense around America? Are they just stupid?
Well, no, not at all. They're actually following the advice perfectly. If you go back to that page from the World Health Organization, then you will see that they recommend you wear the mask (properly) for 1 of 2 reasons:
1. If you are sick, so as not to infect others,
2. If you are interacting with a sick person, so as not to infect yourself.
In America... especially around New York where they are propagating this advice, a lot of people are sick - we're talking hundreds of thousands - so, people in America are interacting with sick people, all the time. Their circumstances are different than here in Australia. Plus... although I meant everything I said about the false sense of security, and the ineffectiveness of the mask, maybe it's simply a gesture to show that they're doing what they can. Maybe it's false hope, but also maybe false hope is what America needs right now, to get them through until some real hope arrives.

Heck, maybe that's also the reason why the Prime Minister is giving churches more freedom to celebrate Easter...
I still don't like it, because it doesn't make any sense to me and it seems unfair, but at least I understand it a little better.


Anyway, that's what's happening around here lately. I'm the Absurd Word Nerd, unmasking the truth wherever it hides. Until Next Time, I've been pondering some of the moral, philosophical aspects of this coronavirus, and a fascinating juxtaposition that I'm surprised that no one has made yet... but, we'll talk about that another day.