A post on context which I think important and needs reflection from all. Its not about data whilst simulatenously not being about data. It is about how we use data, how its relevant to where we are within timeframes and timescales, how we think and where we go from here.
Lewis Goodall @lewis_goodall
Very interesting words from Arlene Foster in a DUP newsletter this morning. First time we’ve heard a national leader talking in terms such as this- referring to a shutdown strategy to buy time as a “failure and will ultimately ensure total despair engulfs all our people.”
Of course NI is in a circuit breaker lockdown right now. But with Burnham forcefully articulating what he sees as the perils of restrictions, this from Foster, feels like rhetorically at least we’re moving to a quite different place on lockdown strategy.
The lockdown strategy to buy time is also, either regionally or nationally, what all four nations are engaged in, hoping a vaccine will turn up. We still haven’t really had answers from anywhere about the questions below
Thread by Goodall from 8th October
The biggest questions that governments in every part of the UK have to answer are these: the lockdown was justified partly as a means to buy time to put the systems (tracktrace/effective small local lockdowns/mass testing etc) in place which would mean we might not need to...
... return to onerous blanket restrictions either nationally or across large swathes of the country. Given such restrictions are returning- what happened to those systems? What effect have they had? Were these the wrong strategies in the first place? And now do we need new ones?
Because though obviously the acute problem of the rising cases is worrying, perhaps the bigger worry is the strategic one: the fact we’re at all and there’s not much sense yet from any politician of how we prevent it again, while we wait for a vaccine, which may never come.
So in short: is it the same strategies but better executed? Or something different?
No point in data, if you don't think about what it shows you and what you need to do with it...
... and this is also about different sets of data from areas other than health now starting to collide and provide conflict about outcomes and the best course of action long term.
This is why we feel anxious. We are going into another phase of the pandemic which by nature is more complex and questions the data we already have. It dares to ask the ultimate question: To what is the extent that we ultimately stop and prevent deaths from covid-19 in the long term?
To date, following the numbers and the data has really been short termist in its approach. By that I mean, we have almost gone from point to point. I found following the numbers early on deeply reassuring because I understood them in the context of where we were in the peak and how long it would be before lockdown would end. They were definitely a psychological crutch and coping strategy for me.
Then we entered a phase of calm where numbers were steady.
At the end of August we entered a phase of realising there was probably going to be a second wave as expected (despite the denialists over the summer). So we introduced restrictions to try and stop numbers rising.
We are now at a phase of realising that our strategy to control the rise of this second wave has failed and we are looking around at the numbers a bit like a headless chicken without much idea of where we go from here. And there are questions about whether the data shows that restrictions are actually as worthwhile as we are told. This is a natural progression. And it is uncomfortable and it is hard to decide the best course of action at this point.
Do we go for another strict lockdown? - but the question there is this a very short term solution which has a finite number of uses and doesn't provide a long term answer.
Do we go for a strategy which doesn't fully address the rising number of cases sufficiently to do enough to prevent a hospital crisis anyway but also causes sustained long term economic damage? Early lockdowns history show that you can limit economic damage - but we are in a situation where this attempt to do this has failed and that might mean we can't mitigate the economic harm in the way we hoped we could. Have we run into the problem of ending up in a situation where we get the worst of both worlds, because we've already failed to protect what we set out to protect? Will our well intentions actions might make the economic fall out worse rather than better?
Do we acknowledge that this isn't something we can control? Will a vaccine save us?
This is all part of a reflection in terms of a switch to short term thinking to rather longer term thinking as the penny as dropped that this is here for the long haul and isn't something that can be suppressed or even contained to the degree that we need or even would like.
We can't avoid this crossroad and point of anxiety.
I think we need break throughs in vaccines to start being really apparent and we a public discussion on vaccines led by government in the near future, in terms of expectation managment and in terms of projections of how much of a difference this will make. This is for psychological reasons about how we cope with the coming weeks and months because the data points now don't necessarily provide the same level of comfort that they did in lockdown.
I find it fascinating to see there being a discussion about wanting to avoid discussion of certain areas on a data thread and the point repeatedly made about anxiety and sanity. And I do think that some would benefit in reflecting on why they find comfort in the numbers and have anxiety about discussion about politics around numbers and why and how they are politicised. The psychologically of it all is important.
Data reveals the world to us in some ways. It exposes material reality. But it can also be used to conceal that material reality and to hide issues that we don't want to confront or deal with.
Conflict happening on this thread NOW isn't an accidental thing. Nor is it really a politically driven thing either though I think. I think is a psychological one reflective of human nature and a switch from short termism view point to a much longer outlook which is a lot hard to predict and comprehend. We are starting to doubt our resolve, how committed we (as individuals, collective groups and looking at individuals around us) are to the current course of action and the limits of our ability to stick to a common long term objective. And this isn't helped by factors which mean different places around the country are almost at different stages in to this process due to the relative impact of restriction on their immediate lives.