More Long-Term Damage

This is not the first time that schools have been closed for months at a time, even in this decade.  To slow the spread of Ebola during the epidemic of 2014-2016, schools in Sierra Leone were closed for nine months:

During this period, with children out of school and vulnerable to exploitation, teenage pregnancies shot up by over 60 per cent; 11,000 girls who were previously in school got pregnant. More died from childbirth complications than Ebola itself, and many of those who did survive never returned to education. 

We've already seen the signs of an unwanted baby boom among poor communities, due to restricted family planning resources during the pandemic, when everything is closed.

In addition, of all the children who attend school around the world, about half have a meal there every day.  We cannot understand education, or poverty, or public health or nutrition, without understanding that for a vast proportion of these children, the meal at school was by far the most substantial of the day, and for many, it was the only meal of the day.  For nearly a year, that meal has not been available.* 

Today, we're coming up on a full year since schools were closed, since everyone who went to school, went to the school.  We have yet to compile the human cost. 

And finally:

According to the UN education agency Unesco and partner organisations... close to 24 million children in 180 countries are at risk of dropping out of education altogether - from pre-primary to university level - next year due to the economic repercussions of the pandemic. 

More long-term damage brought about by COVID-19, marring the face of the new world.  And yet we continue to extend the pandemic with foolish, irresponsible behavior and a lack of leadership.  Every day, every life is crucial. 

* - Many non-profits - including the USDA - have spent that year trying to get nutritious meals to families with children; this is by no means universal.  

Dithering Until It's Too Late

While we wait for herd immunity, more and more of us are getting vaccinated.  In some ways, the new world - or some semblance of it - has arrived if you've had your second jab and have waited a few weeks to be sure.  What does that semblance of a new world look like?

Right now, it looks fragmented, unsure, and contentious.  Vaccinations should unlock new levels of mitigation - opportunities to gather in ways that most reasonable people haven't considered for a year.  But how do we know the others in the room are vaccinated?

If this conversation sounds familiar, it is.  Vaccination is in full swing in many countries,* but, incredibly, the key to moving vaccinated people into the new world - some universal way to prove you've been vaccinated - is not. 

There is no consensus anywhere, except in a couple of countries (Israel and Greece) which have developed "digital vaccination certificates."**  But the various countries of the EU cannot agree on what form a universal certificate should take - or even if there should be one.  Dr. Fauci seems to be pleading for a way to certify vaccinated individuals so they don't have to be as stringent on public health issues:  "It's common sense."  And the CDC has recommended that fully vaccinated people do not have to quarantine if they come in contact with someone who is infected (although quarantine has been, essentially, voluntary from the beginning).  But no universal "mark of the V."  And the British government said "it is studying the possibility of issuing some kind of “COVID status certification.'"

tl:dr:  No universal vaccination pass yet.  And it looks like we'll be dithering until it's too late.  

Just one note about "inequality."  The opposition to universal vaccination passes is almost entirely focused on the inequities that are the logical result of the process.  People who have not been vaccinated will be restricted, isolated, unable to participate in the new world.  Boris Johnson, at the same time he spoke about developing Britain's COVID status certification, said, "“We can’t be discriminatory against people who, for whatever reason, can’t have the vaccine.”

Yes we can.  Separating those who have been vaccinated from those who haven't is wise public health policy.  It's only for a few months.  Negative tests can substitute for vaccination passes.  The alternative is to not "discriminate," which will extend the pandemic and kill more people.  Let's not give up when we're so close to the new world.

* - ...but not in others.  Many countries - almost entirely poor countries - have yet to begin vaccinations.

** - The airlines are also working on this.  More on air travel and vaccine passes soon.

Getting to 70 (or, more likely, 95)

As we have discussed ad nausem, the arrival of the new world will depend on herd immunity.  We also know that there is no herd immunity in a civilized society (one that is not willing to sacrifice millions of its members) without vaccination.  And the number representing the proportion of the population who needs to be immune ranges between 70% and 95%.  WHO cautions that we don't really know yet.

But it's clearly going to be more than 50%, and that's a problem right now, because as of a few weeks ago, about half the participants in this Kaiser Family Foundation survey reported that they would "wait and see how it's working," "definitely not get it," or "get it only if required."  Skepticism and refusal has been diminishing as the vaccine program has progressed, but these positions still represent about half the American population.  

That has to change a lot before we can set our sights on herd immunity.  Perhaps the experience of being a vaccine refuser in Israel might provide a cautionary note.  Israel has jumped out ahead of the rest of the world with its vaccination program; half of Israelis (but not Palestinians) have had at least the first shot.  The unvaccinated, according to Health Minister Yuli Edelstein, "will be left behind," banned from a wide variety of activities, including theaters, gyms, resorts, and, without very recent positive test results, work.

This is, as they say, a developing story.  Rules for vaccine refusers in Israel are not legislated by the Knesset, but imposed by employers, business owners, courts and other authorities.  Whether the national government - of any country - chooses to wade into this minefield in the battle between public health and the rights of individuals, is yet to be seen.

But none of this changes the cold bio-mathematical facts of herd immunity, which requires many of those who are hesitant or unwilling right now, to be vaccinated.

Aberration

Turns out that if you work for Goldman Sachs, where 90% of workers were virtual during the worst of the pandemic, WFH is not going to be a feature of the new world.  CEO David Solomon thinks it is "an aberration."

"Aberration?"  Whoa.  Who hurt you, David?

Tanzania the Healthy

I'm not sure how to think about this, so I'm putting it out there for you to figure out:

There is no COVID-19 in Tanzania.  Not a single case.

At least according to Tanzania's President John Magufuli, who led three days of national prayer in June which, according to him, eliminated the virus from his country for good.

National data backs this up.  Of course, the data is based on the testing regimen, which tests only visitors.  Apparently, no Tanzanian has been tested, at least since June, so there are no cases (why does this sound eerily familiar?).

The Tanzanian government has not ordered any vaccines, nor has it applied for COVAX assistance.  With no cases, why do they need a vaccine?

"Countries that opt not to vaccinate their citizens could also incubate the virus, offering it a base from which to mutate, even as it is diminished or eliminated in the rest of the world."

Global herd immunity just got a little harder, and the new world is a little further off.

Global Herd Immunity

Here at "The New World," we feel pretty confident that no one has herd immunity until everyone has herd immunity.  As noted, the virus has not yet learned to respect arbitrary, human-drawn borders of any kind.

So all this talk about the US returning to normal in the summer or fall or Christmas is, on important levels, meaningless.  You know that, I know that; I've written about it before but I can't find where at the moment.  But as recently as yesterday, the New York Times published some detailed research that set up the parameters for herd immunity in the US, as if that would return us to normal.  The only important measure of herd immunity is global herd immunity.

So how's it going?  I've come here today, actually, just to share this one chart.  Here's how it's going*:

I'm a big fan of reducing social inequality, but the problem here is that we're vaccinating a small part of the world and expecting to live in that world after our handful of rich countries are vaccinated.  This makes about as much sense as sending vaccines only to states in the US whose name start with vowels.

Global herd immunity.  We need to see this phrase a lot more often, especially in rich-country policy documents.

* - COVAX, at #3, is an initiative funded by richer nations (including, post-Jan 20, by the US!) to provide vaccines to poorer nations - although it won't be enough, and richer nations (see Canada) are appropriating some for themselves).

Zoom Relationships

Lots of speculation regarding the future of the office in the new world.  Partly  because, well, there's not a lot to write about as we settle in to our long voyage to the outer planets.  Who knows?  But there are those who are pushing back against the assumption that WFH will be a major factor.

Why?  Because "organizational life is founded on relationships," according to Beth Humberd and Scott Latham, of the University of Massachusetts at Lowell.  And relationships, they insist, require trust and cooperation, which seems self-evident, and they also require physical proximity, which does not seem so self-evident.

The study they rely on to connect office relationships and physical proximity was published in October of 2018, long before COVID, WFH and the Zoom culture.  From the Abstract:

We contextualize workplace relationships in their physical environment and propose that spatial dimensions common to modern workspaces actively influence workplace relationships, focusing specifically on the spatial dimensions of proximity, workspace assignment, privacy, and crowding.  Our spatial model of work relationships proposes that these elements work through relationship-building mechanisms, such as communication content, face-to-face frequency, communication duration, and identity marking, as well as through relationship-straining mechanisms, such as territoriality and ego depletion, to differentially influence both positive and negative relational ties at work.

It looks to me that Humberd and Latham's "physical proximity" argument is based primarily on the study's inclusion of "face-to-face frequency" as a positive influence on relationships.  Fair enough.  But a Zoom call is essentially "face-to-face," and although there's a lot to be said about the differences between a Zoom call and a physically-in-the-same-place meeting, there's no evidence that the positive impact on relationships that a physically-proximate meeting has is significantly greater than that of a Zoom meeting.

There's also the interesting thought that some of the difficulties of the physical workplace indicated in the Abstract - "...proximity, workspace assignment, privacy and crowding," are largely addressed when you're working from home.  And even if it is shown conclusively that physical proximity improves workplace relationships, will corporations abandon WFH purely on that account, when WFH provides everyone with so many other benefits?

The more I think about this, the more interesting it becomes.  The Abstract notes "relationship-straining mechanisms, such as territoriality and ego depletion."  What impact would working from home have on these issues?  How about sexual harassment?  Bullying?  Certainly water-cooler conversations, touted as "critical to new ideal generation," can be done by text?  Or on Twitter, to engage a much wider audience?

Lots to think about in the dark void before herd immunity.

One Year

This blog is over nine months old, but the pandemic - the part that was made real, and is still real, to Americans - is one year old today.  On February 6, 2020, Patricia Dowd became the first American to die of COVID-19.  

Her heart burst.  Imagine that.

That's when it started, for most of us.  When we started dying.  When the alarm bells went off.

When we set sail.

Happy birthday.

Disruptive and Turbulent

I'm here today to talk about post-COVID thinking.  Or, at least, what big thinkers are thinking about "the day after COVID."

That kind of grandiose and hazy stuff can be found all over.  Everyone wants to get in on the ground floor and maximize the new paradigms and innovative opportunities of the post-COVID space.  And so forth.  It wouldn't be so tiring if it weren't pretty much the only writing being done about the new world.

And it's mostly of the "wouldn't it be great?" variety that we've seen over and over.  But I did see one interesting idea recently, which was connected to an extensive series of videos of "big thinkers" talking about the new world.  The upshot is:  Many changes that were coming, slowly, or insisted on, or stalled, will break free and start happening, like an ice jam breaking up in the spring.  

Business, education and politics will be more disruptive and turbulent; changes brought about, or exacerbated, by the pandemic, will continue and expand.   Telemedicine "is here to stay," and every company will become much more digital than they've ever been, and "...will have to take a great deal of its commerce, interactions and workforce online."  And there will be more robots than ever!

I only read the article summarizing the themes of the videos, because there are ninety-nine of them and each is at least five minutes long, meaning that there are eight hours of video.  It might be fun to look in on a few to see what's what.  I'll do this myself, and let you know if the big thinkers have anything interesting or important to say about the new world. 

Late

If this blog were a pregnancy, the baby would be overdue.

WFH Gets Even Better

Don't you love tripping over a new idea you know nothing about while you're slogging through material that isn't going to pan out to anything interesting?  I do. Happened just today. 

Here's where it begins:

"...nearly two-thirds of tech workers in the San Francisco Bay Area would consider relocating if given the option, and many of the region’s biggest employers—including Facebook, Google, Twitter, Square, and Coinbase—have announced plans to allow at least some staff to work from anywhere on an ongoing basis."

Here at "The New World" we looked at the whole "work from home" thing quite a long time ago, but there wasn't much to say about it since no one knew with any certainty whether a substantial number of companies and/or employees would continue the practice in the new world.  Today, it's pretty much the same:  predictions without any real evidence. 

But there are, apparently, some emerging incentives which may have an impact on the popularity of working from home (in addition to all the other advantages).  Municipalities are offering "remote worker incentives" to individuals who move there to work from home.  "Cities and towns have long offered companies financial rewards for bringing jobs and tax revenues to their region, but now many are turning their attention, and incentives, toward these individual mobile workers."

As it turns out, you might be able to score $2,000 cash if you move to Savannah, GA, to work from home, or maybe you'd rather move to Tulsa, OK, for $10,000.*  The Shoals region of Alabama, in the northwest corner of the sate, is offering the same amount for tech workers who relocate.  Topeka, KS, which is really in the middle of nowhere, ups the ante to $15,000.  And if you want to move to Vermont - well, you're too late, as their Remote Worker Relocation Program has run out of money and has not - at this point - been renewed.  But we can always hope.

The headquarters-siting sweepstakes is really a pain in the neck for all concerned.  A remote worker incentive program, however, is much easier, and benefits everyone - workers get to work where they want, with a little help for moving expenses.  Corporations get to live in much cheaper real estate markets, vastly increasing their options; and municipalities don't have to give up tax revenues to attract big installations, but instead get full-time workers who will live and shop in their town, in return for a reasonable investment.  “The multiplier effect on that investment becomes huge,” says Bob Ross, the senior vice president of marketing and communications for the Greater Topeka Partnership. “And then it just adds density to your community in terms of intellectual capital.”

As you might expect, most of these programs require extensive applications, and are limited:  only a certain number of grants are available.  But they certainly change the landscape of workforce distribution.  And they're not pandemic-dependent:  the benefits to all concerned will be just the same in the new world.  We'll just be much, much more used to working from home.

* - Tulsa is the ugliest city in the country, and I can't, at the moment, think of an amount that would get me thinking about moving there.