By Baruch M Blum

We at ECV often wonder why there aren’t more people joining our efforts or following our guidelines, especially given the terrible toll that the coronavirus has already taken in the world and in so many people’s lives. This might be due in part to a few aspects of our approach that are to some extent paradoxical. You might ask, “How do you know your guidelines are right, anyway?” This brings us to the first paradox of ECV. To illustrate it, first see how you respond to these statements given your current knowledge: 

1. Masks are an effective precaution against coronavirus: True or false? 

2. Coronavirus is not dangerous for young, healthy people: True or false?

3. A distance of six feet is enough to protect against the virus: True or false?

4. Getting a haircut is safe as long as everyone is wearing a mask the whole time: True or false? 

5. Opening schools is safe because children are not likely to spread the virus: True or false? 

6. Being reinfected with coronavirus is very unlikely: True or false? 

7. Getting to zero in my city would be ideal, but it is enough to flatten the curve: True or false? 

Does your behavior align with your answers? 

Now let’s add another option to each one: “I don’t know”. Or even, “I don’t know for sure”. For how many of them would you switch your answer to “I don’t know”? And in that case, what would it mean for your behavior to align with that answer? 

Decisiveness in Uncertainty

ECV advocates for very decisive action in the face of great uncertainty, and that is the first paradox. For the questions above, there is a drastic asymmetry in terms of how to act, even if the science is split or not yet known. You take the side of precaution. And in a situation with a deadly disease that spreads exponentially, you sometimes have to take that precaution with the same seriousness that you would take the most certain science. It is devastating how many lives have been lost due to people rationalizing risky behavior and policies with half-science rather than following the simple wisdom of “Better safe than sorry”. 

Our situation calls for a mixture of humility and confidence that can be very tricky. You have to be humble enough to say “I don’t know” but confident enough to push yourself and others to act proactively in the face of not knowing. Unfortunately, we see many people and governments stumble in this internal conflict. On the one hand, we’ve been seeing the tragic results of overconfidence, of people thinking we could outsmart the virus without “overreacting”. On the other hand, there are those who have the humility to say “I don’t know” but who then match that humility with passivity, or just submitting to the “knowledge” of those more arrogant. 

Now, you might say it’s not so simple. What about the very real costs of these precautions? Someone might be trying to outsmart the virus with some middle path, rather than go extreme, because they don’t want society to suffer from the pains of lockdown -- not just because they’re being arrogant. This speaks to the next paradox of ECV.

The Question of Compassion

What do you say to the parents of little kids whose school is closed because of coronavirus precautions? Or to small business owners who are going bankrupt because of lockdowns? Don’t they deserve us making an effort to compromise? The cure is not worse than the disease, but it is painful. 

Unfortunately, any attempt to “compromise” with the coronavirus threatens to both prolong the pains of the cure while also perpetuating the disease. This is why ECV calls for a level of stubbornness even in the face of societal pain. To act on your compassion for those who might get sick and die, you have to push others to accept major discomforts in their lives. 

Again, this is a tricky paradox. On the one hand, you of course have those who are not compassionate enough. They don’t want to accept any discomfort in their own lives, let alone going through the trouble of convincing others. But on the other hand, you have those who are very sensitive to the feelings of other people around them, and this sensitivity might keep them from pushing for sufficient precautions. Not only would they dare not tell a parent that they can’t send their kids to camp over the summer -- they might worry they’re being rude if they ask their friend to put on a mask. It would be hard to get either of these two types of people to join our efforts.

And then there are people who say they would definitely want to embrace our efforts in theory, but that they don't think enough other people would opt in to make their own efforts worthwhile. Why try when the rest of society will just screw it up anyway? Which brings us to the third paradox.

Optimism vs. Pessimism

In our messaging, we might err on the side of pessimism about the nature of the virus itself. When the science is still so limited, pessimism about coronavirus helps motivate the proper amount of precaution. But we embrace an optimism about our agency as a society to contain it, and an optimism about the agency of a single community in changing society, and of a single individual in changing their community. 

We prefer to give the benefit of the doubt to people rather than to the virus. With understanding and persistence, you can convince enough people to change their behavior, and even some politicians to change their policies. The same can't be said about the virus. Optimism about coronavirus serves no real purpose other than to allow for risky behavior. Optimism about people offers the motivation to keep pushing in the right direction. We can get to zero.