Indeed! How do they? This question perplexes the mind. We start with hypotheses, also called notions, or assumptions or just plain hair-brained ideas. And from that gels a composite. Much like the Wall Street Market Place, now a cavern of blazing colored screens that digitally-talk to each other without much human interaction, but once not too long ago was the hub of commerce and invested loans between humans, yes this very market place is the ebb and flow of the ethereal serum that vitalizes and replenishes the collective sense between humans and the machines and arbiters the value of a company. Similarly, the virus that is the basis of the pandemic also is the requisite arbiter of desolation, destruction of some human lives. But once the collective ire of the humans in the form of understanding and immunity has been raised to a level worthy of a firewall, well, then the little “bastard” dies. But good does come of it. As Camus’ Father Paneloux cries from the pulpit, “This same pestilence, which is slaying you, works for your good and points your path.” Indeed, all joy is remembered relative through the lens of hardship. So instead of the fear of death, perhaps we might look to the wonders of living. Even while the dues, for these viral mutations that change its potency and virulence, we as humans are paying with the currency of our demise, we know as a species, overcoming these odds is just a matter of time. Our systems are equally built to outlast the rigors of this insolent microbial beast and be the stronger for it.
Perspective:
(from: Visual Capitalist)
What then is that collective firewall, that I spoke of earlier? It is often termed as the “herd.” To keep this monolog short let me make it simple so that even I can understand what I am about to say.
Perhaps we should delve just a bit into the 1918 Influenza pandemic. The graphics from history books show that there were three phases of infections. The initial one followed by a much larger one and then a small one. Theories abound as to the potential causes of these phases. Some say, the hot summer months during World War I, helped reduce transmission and the winter months exacerbated due to confined proximity between individuals. Perhaps precautions were undertaken and relaxed after each phase died down? Or perhaps it was not anything to do with the human endeavor? Perhaps it was all in the magic circuit of the four nucleic acids of the small RNA chain within the envelope of the virus itself? Viral emergence can be by chance or perhaps manufactured as suspected in COVID as one with “gain of function” by a Chinese scientist in the Wuhan lab and reiterated by a molecular biologist in Hong Kong. Chance as well as scientific conceit will inflict pain on us and that ultimately becomes a conduit for our understanding. We suffer from this indiscretion but much more in our imagination than in reality as Seneca would say. There is a creative endeavor by a few folks to harness the power of the mind and catapult it into the catacombs of manufactured disasters. True, COVID causes death. It has killed 150,000+ Americans over the past four months and infected 4+ million in its wake. Denial does not obviate such reality, but it also should bring some perspective. And that seems to still be lacking from this 30,000-foot perch where I sit in my imaginary loft wading through the clouds, envious of the simplicity and grace in nature that we have become blinded to.
Let us ponder on that for a minute. What am I implying in that last sentence? Perhaps each phase or cycle of infection is a natural phenomenon for the virus to find a new herd of hosts that have not been infected? So, if we are to “shutdown” or go into a “lockdown” for a period of time and then as the infection rate diminishes significantly, we open up society, which happens. The dormant guest reignites and launches itself into another herd of uninfected hosts. The size of infection may be less or more based on the degree of transmissibility and the guest’s ability to mutate enough for its own survival. Such mutations define the very nature of viral infections. The virus, if considered a life-form has its own issues of surviving. The more access it finds to uninfected hosts, the more likely it is to leap at the chance. And so, it does. Humans cannot be in a perpetual phase of a lockdown unless we as humans plan to live as troglodytes or die-off as a species. No commerce, no work, and eventually people die of starvation from food, from suicides, from illnesses, from a host of other maladies that afflict the flesh that can be managed with proper care.
That then brings us into another conundrum. Should we lockdown at all? That question seemed to have had answers from Sweden and some other European nations that did not move into the drastic action of shutting down their societies and their economies and lived to tell the tale. True, the number of deaths was more than in neighboring nations, but their story may not have been written as yet. By that I mean, artificial attempts at shutting down societies to prevent transmission may be a temporary phenomenon that perhaps makes us as humans feel that we are doing something, yet it may have little to do with reality. In other words, the virus will continue to linger and find new hosts for its perpetuity and survival, until it finds the firewall of fewer and fewer uninfected or immune individuals.
If one looks at countries like Pakistan and India where millions and billions live respectively in relatively smaller parcels of land. Healthcare and hygiene are all not educationally enforced in those societies as it is in the western world. The travel there is a form of expected chaos, with bodies upon bodies riding on four-wheeled vehicles meant to carry only six. And large numbers of family members cohabiting in confined spaces sometimes with limited water supply, electricity, and sewer drainage creates rampant transmission. Hence, proximity lends itself to easy transmissibility of such urchins as seasonal flu and viruses, that constantly linger at the doorsteps of humanity. The recent data from these two countries in particular show the rapidly declining rate of infections and deaths after the peak. One, then has to consider the question, “Why?” It seems to mimic the graphic from UK and Sweden when compiled together....and perhaps reconciles the past and the future as well?
Perhaps the previous melting pot of viral infections within these societies and the antifragility related to previous coronaviral interactions with the human hosts have hardened the T-Cell Lymphocytes into creating long-term immunity against the newcomer? This newcomer, the COVID, has origins in the ancient version of the influenza virus and therefore immune-recognizable. Thus, when provoked into action to spread its progeny, only the previously uninfected (or without immunity) are falling ill to the disease and the elderly with comorbid conditions are dying from it? That must give us pause, for just a bit. Shouldn’t it?
On a sidebar, did you know that the human intestine plays host to billions of resident bacteria, and the Human DNA has tiny snippets of viral material protected and placed in the once termed, “junk DNA” or the introns. So, no matter how much alcohol and chlorine one uses to wash the outside, the inside is a teeming hotbed of miniature creatures. Let that sink in.
The 64K question then is, “Are we deluding ourselves by shutting down?” Will the flattened curve keep haunting our societies until the magic number of 30-35% infected population has been achieved? That question remains unanswered. But it is thought-provoking.
Perhaps knowing the modus operandi of the virus as we now seem to know, suggests that those infirmed, elderly, and with other co-morbid conditions need to be protected and the rest of the country would do better to continue on its merry way with prosperity for all.
I ask these questions to probe potentials. I ask these questions to light a fire of understanding. I ask these questions so that another point of view can gain traction rather than the constant drubbing by the well-placed mouthpieces that lose credibility by opening their mouths much too often. Using John Keat's famous words, we are here to "unweave the rainbow" not its beauty, but the reason behind the colors, and use that reason not to stifle the imagination but to advance the knowledge and understanding of things, as they exist.
“I’d rather have questions that cannot be answered than answers that cannot be questioned.”
-Richard Feynman
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