Risk
A truck barrels down the road, so you step back from the curb and wait patiently until it passes to cross the street.
An enormous dog snarls and barks and strains on its leash as you approach. You make a wide circle, perhaps even crossing the street as you pass, just to be safe.
Your hiking trail rounds a bend and a chasm opens up to the right, so you hug the left as you hike on. Conditions turn icy and you start to lose your footing. You turn around and save the summit for another day.
Risk assessment is so easy when threat speaks directly to the limbic system.
It is so much harder when the threat is delivered intellectually rather than viscerally!
There is a pandemic on. Should you wear a mask? Two masks? And if so, in what contexts? Should you yell at people who aren’t wearing masks to try to get them to wear masks? (Yes, you should wear a mask into a store. No, you should not stress-yell at anyone, especially in pandemic because yelling is as significant a risk factor as quiet naked face holes.)
You have to pick your pandemic bubble, and each person in the pod carries different risk of complication from the disease. How do we balance the importance of social support and companionship with the risks of a contagious virus?
Several vaccinations come out in quick succession, some of which are a novel mRNA technology and are very effective while others are a little less effective but are a tried and tested mode of delivering immunity. And what do we even mean about “effective?” There are different ways to measure and more information coming out all the time. Should you get a shot?
Gut isn’t the best way to weigh intellectually delivered risks like these. Gut’s just going to reflect innate personality traits, anxious vs. rebellious, or local social norms. Some healthy individuals haven’t left their homes or received visitors in a year. Others behave as if all is normal and party on. Neither of those is an optimal way to live right now.
Probability and statistics can help, if we know how to read them. But you’re going to need to brush off your fractions and your percents, at the very least.
I’m friends with a lot of other scientists, engineers, and public health people. We speak statistics. And can I tell you what we’re saying, when we sit around our backyard firepit in the cold and socialize in our masks?
We are very frustrated with this message, popular in the news media: “Yes, you should get this shot, but don’t you dare think that you’re going to get to do anything fun just because you’ve had it! NEW NORMALLLLL!”
COME ON.
STOP IT.
Let the people have nice things!
The “nothing changes” message actively extends our pandemic by discouraging vaccination and killing off what little spirit and patience we all have left. Also, it is fear mongering and an effort to ELIMINATE any risk rather than the data-supported strategy of risk-management that all the public health math says we should be using. Go read Julia Marcus, as she is the best on this.
People are dying of depression and loneliness. People are still dying of all the usual things, too, only now they’re dying alone. Financial burdens are heavy on many, many families. Poverty kills, too. Even those of us who are hanging in there are slowly falling apart in body and losing our social skills. My family’s posture and eye contact is shot.
Right now, people are chasing vaccines. But pretty soon, the very eager will all be vaccinated and vaccines will need to chase people. You have GOT to let people have nice things when they do what’s best for their communities. Otherwise why the heck would any vaccine skeptic ever get the shot?
More importantly, though, we should let people have nice things because the numbers say it’s safe.
If you’re interested in reading an article that dives into this and crunches the numbers, Emily Oster is my fav. She does the math magic for you over here.
But if you just want Kate’s hot take, it is this:
Once the elders and otherwise vulnerable people in your pod are vaccinated, you can and should begin to think about opening up to new things. Especially the kind of new things that bring great joy and strengthen community without elevating risk too TOO much. (Oster says: still no hot basement singing parties, ok?)
There are five main factors in spreading this virus:
face coverings
volume of speaking
density of crowding
duration of exposure
circulation of air (outdoors vs. indoors)
In my pod, my parents are the most at-risk individuals due to age. Now that they have their first dose of Moderna, I feel relief. We are not immediately diving back into normal life, but right now, at this moment in time, I feel comfortable with activities that increase our risk of transmission in one of the above areas at any given time.
When we are all fully vaccinated (including recommended wait time for immunity to kick in), I will feel comfortable gathering with other vaccinated individuals inside or outdoors. Without masks. As for unvaccinated people, continued fire-pit gatherings and walks in the woods! How do kids fit into this? Who else are the kids exposed to? Are they vaccinated? These are the relevant questions.
So, yes, it’s a gradual slope back to community engagement, but that slope gets to start now. A friend pointed out that it’s an awkward growth phase for us all, so it might be a little socially uncomfortable for a while as different families are in different situations and have different risk tolerances. Let that be ok.
***
I had a dear friend I know from my support group ask me,
“But Kate, what if you’ve been the 1 in 100,000 before? How do you learn to live with even the smallest risk?”
We have both been the rare unlucky ones, she and I.
It is hard to learn to trust odds again. But when we have no tolerance for risk, all we experience is danger. Rare traumatic events can trap us in fear for a long, long time. Limbic system pumping at the slightest little thing. There’s no talking the adrenals down with data. This is a question less about math and more about how to heal the soul to a point that it can live in uncertainty. I haven’t got any numbers for it, just presence in body. Attention to sensation. That’s where we’re starting, she and I. Learning the fear. Loving the fear. Making space for the fear. Strangely, it’s exactly where I start with my math-phobic kids who are terrified of taking tests. Breathe. Notice. Allow.