disease

Pandemic Disjunction

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

As my regular readers know, I work in medical technology and IT. It won’t surprise you that I am putting a lot of thought into Bird Flu right now and what kind of responses will be needed. Some of the responses are going to involve me and people like me so I think about it, and by that I sometimes mean panic in a very organized manner.

Now I’m not an infectious disease expert – I’m a Project Manager with a psych degree. I can’t predict the chance of this kind of thing or that or A-3 versus A-6 swaps and so on. I’m more interested how we respond and what I need to worry about to keep things running. I’ll let the medical experts tell me when to worry – well worry, more as I’m also a hypochondriac.

What can I say, I fit my job.

And since I like to talk Project Management, because it relates to my career and to current events, let me share one of my big fears about Bird Flu – what I call The Disjunction. I am very concerned that the response to Bird Flu becoming a pandemic will be a bunch of completely incoherent, disconnected responses which will make it much worse.

We’re a pretty dis-unified country in many ways. I don’t think we can have a unified response to a new pandemic. We have states fighting with and trying to show up each other, and some states basically owned by their political machines. Imagine the response to Bird Flu . . .

One state makes its own vaccines, another finds some loopy lawmaker try to outlaw 5G, one does lockdowns, another bans masks, etc. I’ve seen pretty diverse COVID responses and fluctuations among states now, and considering the amount of B.S. surrounding health these days, I expect if Bird Flu gets to pandemic level, it’ll be worse.

We’re not going to easily get to the truth considering the state of communications. Many news agencies don’t do their job, “both sides things” and of course kiss up to whoever their billionaire owners need to kiss up to. Social Media is awash in conspiracy theories easily monetized, and I don’t even know what’s going on at Meta anymore. We’re not going to have any unified viewpoint or sane, broad method of discussion – there’s no adults in the room.

Social media and quisling news will make it worse.

Speaking of, I don’t expect our “leadership” to handle it. I’ve not exactly been thrilled with the CDC for the last few years anyway. With the promise of RFK and others of his ilk as medical leaders, I’m even more cynical – even if they don’t get in they and their replacements will cause problems. I also expect assorted self-interested politicians and pundits will happily stake out their territories, rile people up with conspiracy theories, and try to take advantage of people. Oh, and I expect lots of people to try to do the right thing but it will be hard.

I think the future response to Bird Flu in the US won’t be a bad response but fifty different state responses, with multitudes of local responses, many of them conflicting. Which might not sound as bad as one unified really bad response, but it’s going to be disconnected and incoherent and that leads to its own problems.

I can see a lot of ways this breaks.

States and cities and so on that take the right measures will still have to deal with the results of others taking bad ones. Having people mask, or get vaccinated, or whatever is great, but when your neighbors are finding new ways to get infected then it reduces your efforts. We share a viral destiny here in this world, and very bad policy can reduce good policy – and that makes for other conflicts.

These disjunctions will generate confusion. Where is it safe to travel? Where do you ship things? How should a hospital respond to emergencies from places of radically different measures of protection? How will people figure out the best response when people are confused, disjointed, and of course deranged or lying?

These disjunctions and confusion will lead to conflicts. States will sue each other, sue the government, cities suing states, personal lawsuits, etc. Do you put in a travel ban on a state awash in Bird Flu? Plus there will be the crazy conspiracy theories, like folks who thought the COVID vaccine made you spread disease.

Some conflicts will doubtlessly get violent. People are primed for it. We’ve seen a lot of disinhibition in this country (which I may comment on more).

As all of this happens, we won’t have accurate numbers. One state will scrupulously measure everything, another won’t report for, I dunno, religious reasons or something. Getting a handle on the pandemic and its impact will be hard. I also expect attempts to cover numbers up by unscrupulous politicians, and you can imagine how that’ll backfire. When your next election comes up, many a politician will want to hide that pile of corpses or the failing hospitals.

Finally all these problems will be exhausting. Remember COVID? Remember that grind? Remember the wearing stupidity? Ready for it again, only with even more to wear you down because now people are primed to discuss how Ivermectin protects you from Chinese bioweapons created by a secret cabal to make you sterile so FInland can seize control? We’re ready to be dumb faster.

So if Bird Flu goes pandemic in the new few years, I don’t just expect an inappropriate federal response, I expect a disjunction among responses all over. It’ll make it harder to manage, ensure more suffering, and scar us pretty badly. Well scar us badly, again.

So me, I’ll be doing doing what I do, keeping things running – find and focus on real goals. Make sure those I work with can do real medicine. I’ll also be ready to stay informed and build my behavior around the idea a lot of people are not coordinated and many are wrong if not malicious. I’ll also be ready to deal with the disjunctions.

A lot of this will be with me buckling the hell down, trying to stay sane. Trying to survive so I can help.

And of course to say “I told you so.” But that part I hate.

I hope I’m wrong.

Steven Savage

The Benefits Of Work From Home

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

With COVID-19 being an obvious issue at the news, there’s stories of campuses, businesses, etc. doing work from home, study from home, etc. This has made me think more about working from home, and I wanted to share some insight.

This has long been a part of my life – I was doing telecommuting experimentally back in 2005. Over the years I’ve seen more and more telecommuting, and the latest health crisis has made people much more interested in it.

I’d say it’s about time. Of course I live in the Bay Area which is dense, has lousy traffic, and in my experience people love to infect each other. However the latter may be due to bitter past experiences – OK it is. I’ve heard “I/my kids were sick but I/they aren’t infectious,” and then two days later I’m curled up in bed because my body is a virus theme park.

So as we find working from home (WFH) may become very vital let’s talk about the positive sides. Let’s talk the benefits so you can pitch it!

Benefit One: Realizing we can do it.

Note how I just ran to discuss why WFH is good? That’s because the tools are already there and have been for years. So first of all realize this isn’t “how can we do it,” the how is there. Trust me.

Benefit Two: Disease Mitigation

Let’s get to the obvious at this time – when more people work from home they make each other less sick. If anything, I think near-mandatory or increased WFH during disease seasons would make people’s lives much easier.

But also there’s another benefit in that people have more time to work out, exercise, etc. Healthy meals can be there in the kitchen. It’s just good in many ways.

Plus, again, disease mitigation. I mean you may get sick, but you’re not spreading it

Benefit Three: Less Traffic

Again, I’m biased because I’m in the Bay Area. It may not be as bad as people think, but once when I was moving there I was in a hotel, reading about the slowest intersection at the time, and realized it was outside my window. That was memorable.

If we get less people commuting, we get less traffic. Any geographic area could probably engineer a decrease significant enough to make WFH pay off in better commutes.

This means more time, more sanity, and less stress. Plus, it may mean less crowding on public transit which means an easier time and less disease.

(BTW, I’m for free public transport as well to really benefit a community).

Benefit Four: More Time

Obviously WFH means people have more time. But I find it’s more than you think – this goes back to my old experiences in fact.

  • Working from home usually means more is at your fingertips and you spend less time walking around, going to the cafe, or trying to find the bathroom in a giant office (been there). Your house is a time-saver.
  • Working from home reduces your routines. Check your email while you eat breakfast. Start dinner and then go back to finishing a report. Shower while numbers crunch.
  • It’s easier to timeshift as you’re near important things like your doctor or a store. You can also be there for deliveries.
  • Working from home obviously saves you commute time. I saved that for last.

Benefit Five: Better Techniques

Working from home will require you to rethink things like how you do work, how you schedule meetings and so on.

Take it from the Agile Program Guy, a lot of our plans, meeting, techniques are just there. We don’t question them. We do this “because.” Work from home is a good shake up because it asks you to do whats important in better ways.

It also asks you just what is important. Trust me, there’s probably more pointless stuff than you realize (or you don’t want to admit it).

Benefit Six: Appreciate those who can’t

If you can WFH you might find others can’t. Good. That’s going to be a way you find who else should be paid more, treated better, and otherwise respected.

It may also mean you can figure how to give them the WFH benefits eventually.

Benefit Seven: Saving money

Office space is expensive. Tech is expensive. That automated coffee machine you got that is more advanced than your laptop is expensive. Maybe you’re overdoing it.

On the other hand, having people work at home, etc. saves money. Period.

However, let’s note that money should go somewhere. The savings should be spread around, people should benefit. Maybe that always-breaking coffee maker could be ditched so people got better computers.

Also, people should be reimbursed or supported for their new expenses from work from home. Keep that in mind.

Benefit Eight: Mental health

Commuting, being stuck in the workplace, etc. can be taxing. Having more time, less commute, and so on is often good for people. It might not be good with the isolation, so let’s get too . .

Benefit Nine: Thoughtful socialization

When there’s more work from home, you also think of how to connect with your co-workers better. Being in the same place a lot can really make socialization less fun – that’s one reason I and some people I know like to make fun events. You know the real kind like “eat a lot of food.”

So iif we work from home more, we find better, new, and appropriate ways to connect with our co-workers.

So What’s Next?

Well, what’s next? Let’s home we start working from home more, using the benefits, and learning how to lead our lives differently. Disease aside, there are lots of other benefits.

Let’s also keep in mind this doesn’t sove a lot of other career issues people have, from low pay to locations with few opportunities to college debt. There are many, many other issues to solve, this just solves some.

But maybe a change helps us think about other problems and solve them.

Steven Savage