This image of the COVID-19 era pool party in Missouri’s Lake of the Ozarks is deservedly viral.These are stunning and disturbing images for me.
I’m struggling to get inside of the heads of these people. Are they extroverts suffering from living in isolation? Are they simply in denial of the danger? Are they innumerate, not appreciating the meaning of exponential? Are they succumbing to incessant pressures of their in-group. to conform. Are they doing expensive signaling to impress each other? Have they attempted any sort of moral calculus in their minds, or have they simply declared themselves to be mini-Fiefdoms, self-legislating that it’s time to move on, the consequences be damned? I’m working hard to pull myself out of any Manichean matrix that might tempt me to see the world in terms of “good” people and “bad” people.
I prefer to think of these people are ordinary flawed people, just like the rest of us, except that they are making a bad decision here.
[Added 2020.05.27]: This situation brings to mind William James theory of the emotions. “I feel afraid BECAUSE I RUN.” Does it work in reverse? “I feel brave because I am ACTING brave”? Or “COVID won’t hurt me because I will pretend it won’t hurt me?”
The snag might be, however, it might not hurt THEM, but they could serve as a vector and serve as an intermediary cause for COVID hurting someone else. With the experts struggling to size up risk with exactness, maybe it’s easy to write off all of the experts, even where they are in general agreement.
Also, This willingness to crowd together in the pool during the pandemic seems to illustrate the power of framing. It would seem that lives are fungible–protecting a life on the highway would seem to be the moral equivalent of protecting someone from COVID-19. But maybe it’s not that simple. Maybe we can more vividly imagine the screeching tires, the crunching metal, the screams and the smell of things burning. Because we have basic level experience with the horror of crashing cars, it provokes us to do what we can to stop it from happening. Even those who drive while drunk think that drinking driving laws are appropriate in principle. COVID-19 is so tiny as to be invisible, so there is no basic level reaction to it. If only it were bigger, like a wasp, we might react to the danger of it better. But because it is silent and invisible, maybe it easy to pretend that it isn’t really a big deal.
One more possibility: they are rebellious. Like a rebellious child who does the opposite of what the parent tells them to do.
I’m thinking of William James theory of the emotions. “I feel afraid BECAUSE I RUN.” Does it work in reverse? “I feel brave because I am ACTING brave”? Or “COVID won’t hurt me because I will pretend it won’t hurt me?”
The snag might be, however, it might not hurt THEM, but they could serve as a vector and serve as an intermediary cause for COVID hurting someone else. With the experts struggling to size up risk with exactness, maybe it’s easy to write off all of the experts, even where they are in general agreement.
My REAL fear is that this mentality is shared by a far larger percentage of people than I imagined.
Erich, you can only get so much (and that is very little) from the analysis of a static image or photo. If you want to hear, in their own words, why these people are congregating together without taking any precautions regarding the spread of viral pathogens, may I suggest these videos …
General public, on why they feel safe about mixing it up at the beach …
https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2020/05/26/alabama-beaches-coronavirus-tuchman-pkg-ac360-vpx.cnn
the youth opinion …
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/spring-break-party-coronavirus-pandemic-miami-beaches/
and on the exact same topic (why people ignore sound medical advice) , these offer humor
https://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/interview-with-jacksonville-lady-who-made-viral-coronavirus-video-11628230
https://twitter.com/PinkyD124/status/1253750565433204736
https://twitter.com/PinkyD124/status/1252313555178852352
Thanks, Andy. That was disturbing. Those links confirm that there are many types of people who live in the United States and a lot of them are very different than me.
As of 05/27/2020, worldwide COVID-19 cases are some 5,495,052; with deaths of 346,230.
As of 05/27/2020, U.S. COVID-19 cases are some 1,658,785; with deaths of 98,078; both national numbers lead the world.
Our numbers of infected to date are more than the next five nations combined, including Spain, Russia, the UK, Italy and Brazil.
The numbers of innocent Americans killed by COVID-19 are roughly equivalent to those killed in Spain, Russia, the UK and Italy combined.
https://www.kff.org/global-health-policy/fact-sheet/coronavirus-tracker/
The U.S. has 4.31 percent of the world’s population and as of 8:44 a.m. CDT, May 27, 2020, has 30.00 percent of COVID-19 WORLDWIDE infections and 28.18 percent of total WORLDWIDE deaths from COVID-19.
https://www.census.gov/popclock/world
Trump and Republicans early on abandoned any national defense or preparation or response to an emerging disease like COVID-19. Now, the U.S. has the highest numbers of COVID-19 related infections and deaths of any country in the world. Nearly all of these infections and deaths were predicted and nearly all were avoidable.
Hong Kong adopted full masking, social distancing, shelter at home when not doing essentials, testing and tracing as well as isolating the infected and has suffered fewer than 10 killed from COVID-19, out of a population of over 7.4 million. South Korea did likewise and has suffered fewer than 300 dead out of a population of some 51.25 million. The U.S. and South Korea both had their first confirmed cases of COVID-19 on January 20, 2020.
Neither Hong Kong nor South Korea had to shut down their economies to combat the COVID-19 pandemic because of quick government, nationwide actions. NEITHER HONG KONG NOR SOUTH KOREA HAD TO SHUT DOWN THEIR ECONOMIES DUE TO PROMPT, NATIONWIDE RESPONSE TO THE COVID-19 BREAKOUT.
HHS through its Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) is charged to fight disease pandemics like COVID-19. Trump appointed Dr. Bob Kadlec as his ASPR. ASPR was a retired Air Force officer and had spent his career in bio-defense.
ASPR took the allocated $250,000,000 from fighting emerging diseases like COVID-19 and put it ALL into fighting WMDs like smallpox and anthrax. ASPR ignored explicit warnings his actions would leave the U.S. defenseless against a COVID-19 type pandemic but, went ahead anyway to cut funding and staffing to zero for any fight of a flu or emerging disease outbreak like COVID-19 in the U.S. ASPR had even gamed out a COVID-19 pandemic hitting the U.S. and was specifically aware of the specific vulnerabilities his and Trump’s policies had created from after-action reports.
Military and infectious disease experts pushed back forcefully against the policies making us horribly vulnerable to and to not to be able to properly respond to a COVID-19 pandemic. Expert military and scientific advice regarding the imminent COVID-19 type pandemic were ignored by Trump, ASPR and HHS Secretary Azar.
One opponent inside HHS opposing Kadlec’s irrational and dangerous moves was Dr. Rick Bright, the Deputy ASPR in charge of creating vaccines and treatments and mitigating the harms of the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Bright is a world famous infectious disease and vaccine expert and Kadlec canned him for opposing ASPR as he gave billions in contracts to former business partners, clients and Republican mega-donors to fight bio-weapons and gave public support to Trump’s medical mendacities about miracle cures, “it’s just like the regular flue” and injections of disinfectants as well as putting UV lights into bodily orifices to “cure” COVID-19.
In one particular glaring bit of grafting, APSR canceled an Obama era contract for a $35 million machine which would have made 1.5 million N95 masks per day for ASPR but, later gave the same company $62.3 million to sell us completed N95 masks we could have been manufacturing by the hundreds of millions. But, we do have millions of doses of smallpox and anthrax vaccines!
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/before-pandemic-trumps-stockpile-chief-put-focus-on-biodefense-an-old-client-benefited/2020/05/04/d3c2b010-84dd-11ea-878a-86477a724bdb_story.html
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/05/whistleblower-complaint-rick-bright-blasts-team-trumps-pandemic-response
If the economy is to reopen we must begin, for the very first time, nationwide testing, tracing and isolating, otherwise millions more will needlessly suffer or die because of the arrogant, ignorant, narcissistic sociopath that runs our nation and his cruel, heartless minions like Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, ASPR Kadlec and HHS Secretary Azar.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/04/20/1000228/the-us-will-need-to-do-20-million-tests-a-day-to-reopen-safely/
Before the first US case, we already knew a great deal about the Novel Coronavirus.
First, it’s a member of the Coronavirus family which, along with Rhinoviruses and Influenza viruses, cause the common cold. It would almost certainly be a respiratory problem. Human-to-human transmission needed to be disproved, not proven. The most vulnerable will be the elderly, the immune-compromised and those with chronic lung, heart or kidney disease. The worst thing to do with a viral respiratory infection is to keep people indoors in an enclosed space with other people. The virus will be most difficult to transmit outdoors where breezes can disperse clouds of droplets. Sunlight damages viruses. Quarantine – complete separation, zero contact with anyone not in full protective gear – is effective. “Stay home” isn’t quarantine. Early epidemiology models are usually wrong. We have many existing epidemiology models of other corona viruses, with shared attributes. Any first-year medical student could have told us this.
That gave us everything we needed. The response should focus resources on the most vulnerable and not worry about the others at the start. We needed people outdoors in breezes and exposed to sunlight. This is not likely to be a very lethal virus. Panic typically kills more than the source of the panic, so reassurance is in order.
Instead, we allowed a disgraced epidemiologist to build a model based on data solely from a politicized World Health Organization that predicted dystopia and induced panic. We made policy based on this very wrong model. We did everything we should not do. We issued orders to shut down the economy, enforced by “Obey or Face Mass Death!!!” declarations. Disagreement was forbidden. Orders created exemptions with zero scientific evidence. We allowed a fringe element to politicize the disease and its treatments. Worse, when the model’s failure was glaringly obvious, we doubled down on authoritarian orders unsupported either by science or law.
None of this was necessary. My ten-year-old nephew should have been outdoors playing in the breeze and sunlight, and not allowed anywhere near me since I’m the poster child for the vulnerable population. Florida’s response made sense, so did Sweden’s. An articulate governor was given a bully pulpit to force catastrophically bad decisions about nursing homes and about what equipment was needed. Instead of 40,000+ ventilators for New York alone, actual use peaked at <16K nationwide. We put fixing the blame ahead of fixing the problem. We shredded the Constitution. We cratered the economy. We became obsessed with comparative numbers without accounting for known factors, such as New Zealand and Alabama having analogous population numbers are not at all alike since one is an island nation. Standards for prescribing ventilator use in the US are relatively low, compared to Mali which had five ventilators in the entire country. This list goes on and on.
My own crude model predicted maximum infection fatality rate of 0.35%, an order of magnitude below the WHO model. I had content taken down by platforms because it was misinformation, defined as not agreeing with WHO. Actual infection fatality rate is likely to be in the 0.1% range.
The photo strikes me as people being foolish, not engaging in dangerous behavior. It represents dangerous behavior only through a lens of “Obey or Face Mass Death.”