Will We Social Distance Forever?

[DSeid]

@ThelmaLou

Thanks. That’s exactly the kind of specific answer I was looking for.

Not *fear *so much as prudence, unless you think those are the same thing. My bold.

I don’t believe in using odds when it comes to myself. For example, the odds are that a woman will not become pregnant from one act of unprotected sex. Well, the consequences of a miscalculation in my world were too great ever to risk that, so I never did. I never took a chance. (And having hit young adulthood in the 60s, I did get around.) Whatever the “odds,” when the consequences of being wrong are IMHO too great to risk, I will be prudent.

I know I’m probably not going to stay shut up in the house until there’s a vaccine or until I’m sure I’ve had the virus and recovered, so I don’t really know what will make me decide to get out. As I’ve said somewhere, being at home by myself 90% of the time is my normal lifestyle, for good or ill (as it were). I don’t really know how I’m going to handle this in a month or two or three. That’s why I’m asking others for their thoughts.

I appreciate the discussion.

Of course fear and prudence are the same things, just viewed through different lenses!

I would beg to differ about odds - you use odds all the time, even if not consistently or explicitly.

The risk/odds of becoming pregnant from one act of unprotected sex were too high given your perception of the possible costs vs the benefits. But protected sex did not have zero pregnancy risk and there were other risks associated with the use of one or the other sort of birth control. Explicitly or more likely implicitly you weighed those odds and the values of the possible outcomes and made choices, based on your values and how strongly you weighted different positive and negative outcomes. Others of course made different decisions about those risks, sometimes not driven by rational analysis but by the value of one of those choices to them in that specific moment.

Mind you many of us are very inconsistent in how we apply those risk/benefit calculations and perception of risk often diverges from actual numbers. Generally speaking we are crappy at the risk analysis process with emotional valence driving it a whole bunch, and highly influenced by the choices that others immediately around us are making.

Some posting to this thread place little to even adverse value on the sorts of social connectedness that the op was referencing, like hugs, pats on the shoulder, shaking hands, or even merely being part of a larger group sharing an experience together in a real world space. Having a reason to avoid that appeals to them. They should require no excuse and have their desires respected at all times but I do not believe that they represent the norm of humanity or of American culture. More people find value to being at the game with thousands of others, hugging an old friend they have not seen in a while … and will be willing, even eager, to take certain levels of risk to do those things, especially once they see others around them doing it.

[alphaboi867]

I do think we could see a long term change to visitation policies at places like hospitals and nursing homes. They won’t always be as restrictive as they are right now during the pandemic, but access is going to be tightly controlled and visitors just being able to work in off the street will as dated non-passengers being able to causally go right up to the gates in airports. It’s going to be really tough for residents in long term facilities like nursing homes. They may end up having to be separated by a glass barrier like in prisons.

[MortSahlFan]

People don’t always act upon data. I think fear will overtake that data. I also think it depends heavily what those you interact with do. If say all your friends/family think “No, I’m not going to a concert” - chances are you won’t start doing all those types of things alone.

[Dinsdale]

As happens quite often, I agree wholeheartedly w/ Dseid.

@DSeid

…

I would beg to differ about odds - you use odds all the time, even if not consistently or explicitly.
…

Or competently/rationally.

Personally, I tend to eschew a lot of crowd/physical contact intensive activity in the best of times. Will be interesting to find out what the true mortality risk is for an ostensibly healthy person. But >98%? I’d personally risk quite a bit on such odds. Of course, I am speaking only of personal, not societal risk.

[ThelmaLou]

@Dinsdale

… Of course, I am speaking only of personal, not societal risk.

When I jumped into this thread, I did so to ask about people’s perception of their personal risk. And it’s definitely true that the perception may be realistic or not, but it’s perception that looms largest IMHO in our decision-making.

The Atlantic Daily: ‘The Enemy Isn’t Going Anywhere’
“I think people haven’t understood that this isn’t about the next couple of weeks,” one expert told our science reporter Ed Yong. “This is about the next two years.”
Formatting in original

*When will things go back to normal? *

Ed Yong, our science reporter who wrote “How the Pandemic Will End,” is back, taking a closer look at that question. Here are just three takeaways from his analysis:

1. This virus isn’t going away anytime soon.

“The pandemic is not a hurricane or a wildfire,” Ed writes. “The SARS-CoV-2 virus will linger through the year and across the world.”

2. Even when the U.S. reopens, the fight won’t be over.

Hospitals will face new challenges and may be forced to reckon with future waves. America will need to stay vigilant and avoid falling into a panic-then-neglect cycle.

3. Steel yourself psychologically.

Vice Admiral James Stockdale was held as a prisoner of war during Vietnam. To survive the experience, Stockdale said he relied on a mix of hope (“the need for absolute, unwavering faith that you can prevail” ) and realism (“the discipline to begin by confronting the brutal facts, whatever they are”). The same strategy can be applied to this pandemic.

“The enemy isn’t going anywhere,” Ed reminds Americans. “To forget it would be to beget further horror.”

Read Ed’s entire piece for an in-depth look at what this summer holds.

The linked article is a long and brutally realistic (though not necessarily pessimistic) analysis of the situation and the near future, and it is paywalled. [Fresh Air interview with Ed Yong including transcript.] Here are the closing paragraphs of The Atlantic article:

…
Over the coming months, we need “to normalize COVID in the public psyche, and reinforce that this will be a part of our day-to-day lives,” said Kissler, the Harvard disease modeler. “Many people I’ve spoken with are aghast at the thought. We thirst for a swift and decisive ‘victory.’ But I’m reminded of images from World War II as people in London walked to work, briefcases in hand, against a backdrop of bombed-out buildings. I think we are in store for a similar period in history, as we learn to make greater peace with the world’s chaos and our own mortality.”

This kind of psychological resilience already exists within large groups of people who have been marginalized during periods of normalcy, and who are now the most at-risk from the pandemic. Elderly people, for example, have been most frequently cast as a vulnerable group in need of protection. But “older people have been through a lot—the civil-rights movement, the women’s movement, the Cold War,” said Monica Schoch-Spana, a medical anthropologist at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. “They are culture keepers, full of stories of how you get through major tragedies and upheavals.”

The disability community has also noted that, at a time when their health is in jeopardy and their value is in question, abled people are struggling with a new normal that is their old normal—spatial confinement, unpredictable futures, social distance. “We know how to do community from afar, and how to organize from bed,” said Ashley Shew of Virginia Tech, who studies the intersection between technology and disability. “Instead of feeling this great vacuum, our social life hasn’t radically changed.” Disability scholars have written about “crip time”—a flexible attitude toward timekeeping that comes from uncertainty. “Everything I enter in my calendar has an asterisk in my mind,” Shew said. “Maybe it’ll happen, maybe it won’t, depending on my next cancer scan or what’s happening in my body. I already live in this world when I’m measuring in shorter increments, when my future has always been planned differently.”

As the rest of the U.S. comes to terms with the same restless impermanence, it must abandon the question When do we go back to normal? That outlook ignores the immense disparities in what different Americans experience as normal. It wastes the rare opportunity to reimagine what a fairer and less vulnerable society might look like. It glosses over the ongoing nature of the coronavirus threat. There is no going back. The only way out is through—past a turbulent spring, across an unusual summer, and into an unsettled year beyond.

[CarnalK]

That’s nice but I do indeed plan on going back to normal. This disease hasn’t really scared me at all, I follow the social distancing stuff out of community duty. As soon as they lift the warnings, I’m having a beer at the bar after work.

[Dinsdale]

Another way to “normalize” is to realize that life has inherent risks, and that death is inevitable. No, I’m not saying we go back to the days of procreating to achieve “an heir and a spare,” or to breed enough home labor for the inevitable infant/child deaths. But people die - especially if they are obese, really old, or otherwise unhealthy. I’m not advocating euthanasia of the least able, but I do question the societal costs to squeeze each additional day of life out of each human. I also question the expense involved in chasing the tails of the bell curve.

[ThelmaLou]

@Dinsdale

Another way to “normalize” is to realize that life has inherent risks, and that death is inevitable. No, I’m not saying we go back to the days of procreating to achieve “an heir and a spare,” or to breed enough home labor for the inevitable infant/child deaths. But people die - especially if they are obese, really old, or otherwise unhealthy. I’m not advocating euthanasia of the least able, but I do question the societal costs to squeeze each additional day of life out of each human. I also question the expense involved in chasing the tails of the bell curve.

That was one of the points made at the end of the article. That people who are disabled or who have been diagnosed with a chronic (and possibly or ultimately life-threatening disease) DO go on to lead “normal” lives. It’s just that now they are right up against their own mortality instead of being able to kick it down the road as young, healthy, never-been-sick people are able to do. Not to mention people in war-torn zones, in high-crime areas, in refugee camps, the homeless whose lives are often, if not constantly, threatened. No one gets out of here alive.

It’s a question of how you perceive the risk to yourself and how much you want to expose yourself, assuming you have a choice.

[Dinsdale]

@ThelmaLou

…

It’s a question of how you perceive the risk to yourself and how much you want to expose yourself, assuming you have a choice.

I’ll read the article - sorry, haven’t had time this a.m.

I’m stricken by how many people say something like my friend: “If my mom gets this, she’s a goner.” My (unspoken) response is, "Fuck! She’s 91, w/ CHF and COPD, on O2. She’s well past her expiration date, and I favor MINIMAL societal expenditures to try to insulate her from THIS particular risk.

[kayaker]

Will funerals return?

Personally, I do not “get” the need to gather with the deceased’s body. I generally do not go to funerals. I went to my gf’s dad’s funeral because she needed me there, but I skipped my dad’s, my mom’s, and just about every other one I was “invited” to attend.

Maybe once people see it isn’t really necessary we can leave them behind.

[CarnalK]

Yeah, no. I think the funeral tradition is a little more ingrained into society than that.

[Dinsdale]

@kayaker

Will funerals return?

Personally, I do not “get” the need to gather with the deceased’s body. …

You still got that backhoe?

[Squink]

Just saw an article by some expert, It’s impossible to tell these days, who says we’ll still be distancing come 2022. Given the situation, that does not sound unreasonable.

[kayaker]

@Dinsdale

You still got that backhoe?

Well, as a matter of fact, we’ve had a few old horses who have needed burial, and a friend with a backhoe has done the job. Dig a swimming pool sized hole, lift and drop the horse in, then back-fill. About an hour total.

Personally, cremation is fine with me.

[CarnalK]

My wife does not seem down with my charnel grounds wishes.

[ThelmaLou]

How is Europe returning to “normal”?
How The Coronavirus May Radically Transform Society
Glimpses of the “new normalcy” start to emerge as European countries begin to lift lockdown restrictions. (Not paywalled-- yay!) My bold.

…
Slowly, tentatively, some European nations have begun to take their first steps toward ending lockdown measures and restarting their economies, as the number of coronavirus cases starts to decline.

In Spain, nonessential workers in some industries, including construction and manufacturing, were allowed to return to work on Monday. In Italy, bookshops, stationery stores, children’s clothing boutiques, and logging companies have been allowed to reopen.

Politicians and public health officials warn that wider restrictions will likely remain in place for weeks or months to come, however. And even when social and economic activities do resume on a larger scale, society may need to adapt to a very different idea of what normalcy looks like.

In Madrid, for example, police officers handed out face masks to riders at train and subway stations on Monday — part of a plan to distribute 10 million masks across the country.
…

On Monday, Spain recorded its smallest proportional daily rise in the number of deaths and new infections since early March, with the cumulative toll rising by 517 to 17,489, according to the Ministry of Health.

“This isn’t victory yet,” Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said this week, emphasizing that the country’s general lockdown would continue. …”
…

In Italy, politicians have been eager to discuss plans for “phase two,” when lockdown restrictions may be lifted. Lorenza Bonaccorsi, Italy’s undersecretary for tourism and cultural heritage, even suggested that Italians might still be able to return to the beach for their summer vacations later this year.
…

Italian health officials, however, say it’s premature to talk about such things.
…

In a televised address to the nation on Monday, **French **President Emanuel Macron announced that the country’s lockdown would remain in place until May 11, at which point he hoped that restrictions could gradually be lifted.

Macron spoke of the need for widespread testing and contact tracing in order to keep the virus under control, at least until a vaccine is developed. He also spoke of the need to transform French society in the wake of the pandemic.
…

“I fully understand the effort I’m asking from you,” Macron told the French people. “When will we be able to return to a normal life? I would love to be able to answer you. But to be frank, I have to humbly tell you we don’t have definitive answers.”

“Humbly”?? That certainly wasn’t The Donald talking. :dubious:

[Dinsdale]

@kayaker

…

Personally, cremation is fine with me.

So un-green! Not willing to be ground up for mulch? Fed to the hogs? Planted as fertilizer for a “weed” patch?

[DSeid]

Yeah being a prisoner of war this ain’t and ain’t gonna be. Other than to those who self impose such. Yes agreed that humans in general are pretty resilient.

As to funerals- I am remembering when my eldest, now 33, played Oregon Trail on the original Mac. When people died you stopped and buried them or did poorly. I suspect that was the case in the real world too. It took time and resources but the living people needed it.

[Skypist]

@Squink

Just saw an article by some expert, It’s impossible to tell these days, who says we’ll still be distancing come 2022. Given the situation, that does not sound unreasonable.

I saw an article about that and it makes me feel like I’m on a crazy rollercoaster ride. There are certain politicians ahem insisting we’ll be back to “normal” very soon, then experts who never actually say when, others who say maybe through May, others who say oh maybe August, and then these researchers who say 2022. I think that’s supposed to be without a vaccine.

It also just feels like TPTB are ready to push the proletariat out the door for the sake of the stock market, health and safety of actual people be damned.

[kayaker]

@Dinsdale

So un-green! Not willing to be ground up for mulch? Fed to the hogs? Planted as fertilizer for a “weed” patch?

That would all be fine with me, although feeding to the hogs creates concerns for those eventually eating the hogs. Cremation is something my gf can accept, so I’ll give way to her wishes there.

As far as the “weed patch” is concerned, it doesn’t require fertilizer. (We have an area intentionally planted with dandelion, broad leaf plantain, and narrow leaf plantain for our tortoise)