There has been a monstrous surge of Covid cases in India. The first wave was supposed to ravage it went out meekly and then for a long period we had a period of stable (and low) numbers. Life was limping back to normal, people were fatigued after a desiccated 2020.
In stock markets there is something called as a stop-loss while selling, which triggers stock sales if price drops below certain point to prevent the losses. Perhaps we were in need of a stop-pandemic number (say 75K cases per day) at each state and country level which should have triggered a national emergency when per day cases surged beyond that number.
We have now landed into this quagmire and we are as we are a rambunctious bunch, politics, blame game, hoarders, doom sayers, cremation ground reporters are distracting everyone and hogging the limelight as many among us are engulfed in their miasma of despair and desolation.
Let’s cut the chasm and see how we landed here? For more than a year India and Indians evaded the dreaded tentacles of the virus, staying home, cutting travel, losing jobs, cutting salaries, relinquishing functions & festivities. As we ringed in the new year, people started to take things lightly. In February this year, me & family made road trip from Telangana to Andhra Pradesh to Karnataka to Tamil Nadu to Kerala, covering close to 1500km. Apart from Kerala no other states people were wearing masks nor did any state government enforced wearing masks. The disparity was so palpable a 500mtrs distance this side and that side of Kerala border, the differences were so stark in terms of mask compliance. That was how lackadaisical the public was becoming.
And there was a reason too for this behaviour, as seen below
Well from January the 2nd wave peaked and tapered off world-wide fuelling the complacency. India was consistently doing good with a negligible case loads as low as barely 20K cases per day in few of those days in the period. The same complacency or short-sight or ignorance whatever one may call has caught many among us unaware.
Mutation — that fancy word was never privy to us and not in our conscience. We have read about, logically we understood, but somewhere we had tinge of hope that first phase didn’t harm us, so the second phase may remain elusive.
Why this sudden fatality?
The surge in cases is worrying, but more worrying is this time around people needing critical care in Delhi and few other cities. So apparently the virus seems to be different now than it was in the first phase and obviously more powerful than its first phase cousin. But scientific community is not yet clear what is causing the havoc/surge. We have an Indian variant B.1.617, UK variant B.1.1.7. B.1.617 was seen from late 2020 in India as confirmed here. As of Apr 26th, scientific community points to inconclusiveness in identifying what is causing the surge of virus. From the charts below B.1.617 is leading the table as of March data, but was it the mutant pushing people into critical care?
Which variant is causing more damage? Why is Delhi more affected than say Kerala or Tamil Nadu? All these questions linger without conclusive answers at this point.
Puzzle vs Mystery
How do we tackle this pandemic? In one of my favourite book What the Dog Saw, Gladwell delves into this topic when dealing with complex problems, where he talks about two kinds of problems — Puzzles & Mysteries
Puzzles have a definite solution; they can be solved. Even if the solution is not obvious it is still there. Solving a Sudoku or Rubik’s cube for example are puzzles. Adding more information takes you closer to solving the puzzle.
As Gladwell tells in the book — A mystery offers no such comfort. It poses a question that has no definitive answer because the answer is contingent; it depends on a future interaction of many factors, known and unknown. A mystery cannot be answered; it can only be framed, by identifying the critical factors and applying some sense of how they have interacted in the past and might interact in the future. A mystery is an attempt to define ambiguities.
Gladwell also points to few examples in his book. He says September 11 attack is a mystery. Will adding more information have averted September 11? May be not as it would add more confusions to the existing pile of information. Enron’s complex financial misdeed, though looks to be a puzzle, Gladwell argues it is a mystery. All the Enron’s papers were in public domain, but they were just too complex for anyone to figure out what is going on. Gladwell goes on to add capturing Osama is a puzzle, as adding more and more information into this can lead to strangulating his potential hideout and hunting him down.
Now this begs a question — is this pandemic a puzzle or mystery?
When we are sitting in the epicentre of this pandemic like today, it looks like a mystery. As the days unfold, cases mount we need to collect data, analyse them, study them, scientific community has to come to inferences. In this situation it is all a mystery. Why did Covid spike on April 9th? Which mutation is causing more damage? Why was it dormant for more than 6 months? Why is there so much variation between states? It is all complex, we can collect more and more data and deepen the mystery.
But once the dust settles and scientists get enough breather to study and conclude it may look more like a puzzle, where you just grab the right information assemble them and come up with a template solution, causal analysis, genesis, mutations etc. It will all look so obvious.
These are unprecedented times, people dying gasping for breath is terrible we had 4000MT per day supplies which fell short mainly due to last mile connectivity and delay in reaching beds in time, we have upped the supplies to 7000MT per day, what will be the demand in peak of second wave? How many people are going to land up in hospital in peak of second wave — well it is not easy to answer, it is a mystery now, made complicated by people’s immunity, adherence to protocols, virus reaction to vaccines and many more. So at this point I guess we can just prepare for worst say 14000MT per day or will it be less?
Grappling with mystery is hard, we can only prepare and prepare more. We can’t predict the precise time nor how it is going to unfold. So it is always a fetish attempt to fix responsibility on someone. How much more to prepare? When to prepare? What to expect? Should we expect 1L people falling sick or 5L falling sick or 10L falling sick on a single day. How we even prepare for apocalypse which may need infinite resources.
Lessons learnt — let us not fight the mystery. The way out would be prevent the unfolding of mystery. By being responsible, by being extra careful with personal habits, by not taking things lightly when we are outside with people. Once we spend enough time within the mystery may be with all information, it can all be pieced together like a jigsaw and solved. Till then let’s fight together and conquer the virus.
Nine months into the pandemic, the most advanced health care system in world faced Oxygen shortages. Newyork alone lost 2,00,000 people battling the dreaded virus compared the India’s total to 2,00,000. Even if we consider under-reporting of 2/3 times, we are still below US. Again this is not justification of dead bodies piling up at home and baying satisfaction having I have less bodies vis-a-vis you. Covid-19 is constant mystery evolving and panning out in various ways, we just need to up the ante and win the war.
Hope in coming weeks, as scientists say vaccinations and spreading of infections, may develop a herd immunity amongst us and this phase will subside. Till then crossed fingers and prayers for all 🙏
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