My wife Mary and I were very excited in anticipation of our Smithsonian tour of Naples, Herculaneum, Pompeii, Paestum, the Amalfi Coast, and Capri. Three years ago this tour had been canceled at the beginning of the pandemic. We felt safe in scheduling this trip now, since worldwide percentages of new COViD cases had become very low.
Wrong. Reflection on later events showed that this was simplistic causal reasoning untouched by any thorough systems thinking.
Bottom line has become: Don’t be fooled by the general low percentages of new COVID cases. Consider the systems context. In this case that would be the daily interaction with other tour members, old people with risk conditions like us.
It has been common knowledge since the beginning of the pandemic that old people with risk conditions have generally higher susceptibility to being infected by the COViD virus than those with lower risk facing the same viral challenge. Keep this in mind. It is crucial to reasoning about this situation.
On May 18, the day after the tour ended, I had my first symptoms. By the next day the symptoms were intense( strong fits of coughing and sneezing, painful constricted throat). My wife joined me with symptoms that day. Needless to say, we had to cancel day excursions we had planned on our own. Three days later we returned to Denver with great difficulty. Immediate testing revealed us both to be positive for COVID.
I was completely blindsided, though I shouldn’t have been had I properly applied systems thinking. Then I began remembering “data” I should have been paying attention to. In the previous few months, various friends and acquaintances had come home from international trips with COVID infections contracted toward the ends of their trips. One couple did not get infected. They had been traveling on their own with a self-planned trip, no tour nor cruise.
Meanwhile, none of our friends and acquaintances who had not gone on tours or cruises of this type had become infected.
Is there something special about us and our acquaintances? What is it? Well, all these people are old with risk conditions, as are most of the people on such tours and cruises. Why should that be a big deal? As one of my scientist friends says, “The virus is everywhere now. Somebody is going to become infected.” He’s right and he’s wrong.
These tours have everybody together every day for guided excursions and most meals. Then on the last evening most have a farewell drinks and dinner together for 2-3 hours.
The reasoning goes like this. The more days a group of at-risk people is interacting the more likely some one person is to eventually become infected, even though there is not that much virus around to be exposed to.
Then, as I have come to understand it, a person is infectious for two days before that person or anyone else is aware that anything is amiss.
That farewell dinner can be a killer. Just one infected person can start a swiftly spreading contagion among this highly susceptible group.
On our particular tour, I don’t know how many of our group became infected. I only know that two couples didn’t come to our last two excursion days, because “they weren’t feeling well”. But they came to the farewell gathering.
Compare this to a forest fire. No problem if trees aren’t closely spaced and generally not too dry. A problem can occur if there is a group of trees closely spaced which are also very dry and flammable. Then it doesn’t take much to set off a fast spreading fire.
Are you a dry, flammable tree closely spaced with other closely spaced dry, flammable trees?
Thank you, Jim Edd, for your first-hand experience and your thinking about it. I have been noticing how much I and others I know are subtly swayed by the crowd in judging covid, ranging from earlier overly fearful to recently blase. Your post is helpful, as I consider the risk to my husband and me.
Laurie
I agree and not so subtly swayed by those around one. Dare I be the only one wearing a mask in this group of my peers?
We were practically the only ones wearing masks on the plane trips, but we didn’t wear masks in our tour group of 21, the very place we should have been wearing them.
I hear that one!
Jim Edd, I hope you and Mary have recovered fully. Your systems thinking adds up to seeing more clearly the factors that have to be taken into account in calculating risk. I think of long hours spent on crowded airplanes as another one. Stephanie
We haven’t recovered fully, but getting better. Mary has a partial hearing loss that has still not improved, keep working on that.
And yes, the factors are many that one needs to consider. As I said, simplistic causal reasoning will land you in places you don’t want to be in.
Thank you Jim Edd. Hope you and your wife are feeling better. There is something to learn from this. There will be more pandemics down the road since we have disturbed the ecosystems and overpopulated the planet, increasing our vulnerability to superbugs. Can we manage our need for socialization with more awareness of the impact of our behavior on self and others even when we have no clear signs of infection? How do we balance that?
Well put, Ann. We better figure this out now since we will have more pandemics, some undoubtedly worse.
I’m so glad you are doing OK now JEJ
Thanks for this well written reminder of how we should be thinking for ourselves about risks to our health and factoring our own conditions and circumstances — dry flammable trees is a wonderful analogy — when making decisions based on general information. My husband and I failed to do that on a recent trip to Greece and are just getting over the non-covid consequences.