Who’s more likely to die, a soldier deployed to Afghanistan between 2001 and 2014 or someone living in the US or the UK if they contract Covid-19?
Most people would opt for the soldier because he or she would have been going into one of the world’s worst conflict zones at the time, against people with the stated intention of stopping them by any means possible, whether by shooting them in the head or planting improvised explosive devices at the roadside.
According to the Guardian newspaper, the British mortality rate in Afghanistan during that period was 2.8 per 100,000 deployed. The US rate was slightly better at 2.5 per 100,000 soldiers. But here’s the thing: In August 2020, according to German firm Statista, the Covid mortality rate per 100,000 people was 70.16 in the UK, 49.65 in the US and 17.67 in South Africa.
Covid-19 is a killer. Getting it is more dangerous than going to war. The numbers don’t lie, even though our opinions might.
We have done well in South Africa by comparison. We had an incredibly tough lockdown and didn’t quibble about wearing masks or sanitising our hands – until we became complacent and started sending children to Rage and going to parties ourselves. We observed physical distancing. In the US and the UK people still can’t even agree on the need to wear masks, never mind impose lockdowns.
Why is this? More to the point, why – if we know what the science says – are we starting to ignore the perils of the pandemic?
You see it every day, and now we are officially in the second wave of Covid- 19 in South Africa.
Perhaps it’s because we can’t see the consequences of our actions, much like the person who smokes and drinks without any side-effects until they’re 90, or the person who swims off an unprotected beach every day in summer but never gets attacked by a shark. Yet, when miners go underground they never forget their hard hats or safety lamps. Soldiers don’t go on patrol without weapons and ballistic armour.
As human beings, we rationalise everything, especially risky or antisocial behaviour, like the person who starts stealing stationery and the odd toilet roll mid-month from the office and graduates to State Capture. We can always find and rationalise convenient exceptions to the rule; letting us bend it to our own ends all the time. We resort to magical thinking, choosing superstition, alternative science, crackpot theories and fake news.
We do this because it allows us to stay secure in the warmth of our own prejudice and ignorance. We do it because it is so much easier than the pain of facing up to different narratives, ones that spell out the real threats, which might not pose an immediate danger but are statistically the most dangerous we could be facing at the moment.
It’s also an incredible act of narcissism and selfishness because even though we might not be at risk, we could be putting others at risk, especially if we are asymptomatic carriers, who make up to 50% of those infected. We see this in the US where people declare that their right to self-determination means they cannot be forced to wear a mask, even if it means protecting the lives of others.
Another part of our problem as human beings is that we want to live lives defined by binary certainties – yes or no, right or wrong – but science is nuanced and continually emerging. When science doesn’t give us certainty and absolute truths we tend to see it as flawed. We don’t see scientists challenging one another as part of the process of developing knowledge but rather as an either-or scenario in which we can take sides, even if it means losing faith in the sanctity of science and losing sight of the great truth articulated by the great Austrian and British philosopher Karl Popper: A theory can never be definitively proved but only disproved, as the next observations may contradict all the previous.
It’s the pathology of perfectionism. It doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t apply critical thought, what it means is that we need to develop a healthy scepticism, reading as widely as possible, listening and testing theories against our own knowledge and lived reality, knowing that the answer is neither fixed nor final, but iterative. Have strong opinions, but lightly held; do not fall victim to dogma.
What we know about this pandemic is continually evolving. That’s difficult for some people to rationalise, so they opt for anecdotal evidence from other people who share their difficulties. Those beliefs reinforce one another, especially in algorithm-driven echo chambers on social media, which in turn foments cynicism, which is unhealthy because it forces us to stop engaging and instead believe the world is flat, that the moon landings were a hoax and that Covid-19 is just a bad flu and we don’t need masks. And burn anyone at the stake who disagrees with us, for heresy.
The truth is we don’t know with any certainty how Covid-19 will evolve, whether the vaccines being licensed will work well and if so, for how long. That doesn’t mean we should dismiss them out of hand. Instead, as pilots who become lost and are finding themselves back on track mid-air will tell you, it’s better to be vaguely right than precisely wrong.
What we do know at the moment is that wearing masks and sanitising are key, physical distancing is vitally important and so too is the ventilation of enclosed spaces. In the beginning the World Health Organisation didn’t think wearing masks was important, now it deems them critical. The first treatments in Italy involved intubating patients and placing them on ventilators, now they use plastic tents and infuse patients with oxygen.
Healthy scepticism allows us to deal with all these competing and evolving theories, unlike cynicism which just breeds blind anger and dissent. And makes us dumb. And when we do look at the science we will realise just how much at risk we and our loved ones are statistically from this virus and maybe we won’t be as foolhardy or selfish, just because we haven’t buried anyone from it yet. DM
Jon Foster-Pedley is dean and director at Henley Business School Africa.
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Very well said.
The distrust of science has always baffled me, as it is the very endeavour that created the modern enlightened world.
Like so many things, distrust is bred by endemic lying. Deliberate untruths are told either to sway public opinion, or suppress information that those with the microphone want to suppress. I used to believe what was put out as “what scientists say” until about two decades ago, now I know that money distorts everything and no media tells the truth – if there even is “truth”. At the beginning of this story, the WHO told the world that masks did not work. Later we were told that this was a deliberate lie at the time to protect supplies of N95 masks. Certainly there’s plenty of debate among properly qualified scientists about how effective they are, but I suppose they serve to remind people that the disease is still out there. As to how one should live, it is a matter of being bombarded by lies, half truths, inconsistencies and sheer lunacy in a never ending stream and trying to find some shreds of truth in it all. Yes, the disease is nasty to some, deadly to a smaller number and I certainly am doing all I can to avoid it – and you just underlined why one would not want to risk it.
Here’s a few more scientific facts:
Covid19 related deaths 2020: 24,000
Rapes 2018: 41,583
Alcohol related deaths 2015: 62,300
Cancer related deaths 2018: 57,373 (Total cases: 107,467)
Deaths due to TB 2015: 34,000
Deaths due to TB 2016: 30,000
Deaths due to TB 2017: 28,000
Deaths due to diabetes 2017: 25,000
Deaths due to Cerebrovascular diseases 2017: 22,000
Deaths due to HIV 2017: 22,000
Deaths due to Influenza and pneumonia 2015: 21,055
Deaths due to Influenza and pneumonia 2016: 20,152
Deaths due to Influenza and pneumonia 2017: 18,837
Deaths due to Chronic lower respiratory diseases 2017: 13,167
Deaths due to other viral diseases 2017: 12,622
Total deaths 2017: 450,000
Total population SA 2018: 58,000,000
References:
https://tears.co.za/wp-content/uploads/presentation.pdf
https://citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/crime/2178462/factsheet-south-africas-crime-statistics-for-2018-19/
https://www.who.int/substance_abuse/publications/global_alcohol_report/profiles/zaf.pdf
https://www.who.int/cancer/country-profiles/ZAF_2020.pdf
https://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/P03093/P030932017.pdf
The rapid rate of infection is what differentiates covid19 from other causes of death – whataboutism is not logic
Karl Popper once said that “science may be described as the art of systematic over-simplification”. So let’s see if we can falsify your theory that “getting Covid-19 is more dangerous than going to war”. Or at least prompt greater respect for numbers and the bias that they can so knowingly induce when the idea is to instill fear rather than support reason. As you said, numbers don’t lie; unfortunately, people often like them to ‘dance to their personal tune’.
Firstly, the Covid statistics which you use are overall ones for the UK, USA and SA – you fail to point out that the Covid mortality rate is heavily differentiated by age (as a close proxy for co-morbidities, decreased immune system effectiveness and some other factors). That is an obvious over-simplification. Studies (see a reference to an example below from The Lancet) indicate that the Infection Fatality Rate between the age group 0-44 differs vastly from that for older age bands. This has now long been empirically established.
Secondly, the military statistics provided are also completely undifferentiated, showing a complete lack of knowledge of combat. The UK will use similar general doctrine to the SANDF – only a relatively small number of personnel deployed to a theatre of operations are actually F-echelon (or combat soldiers); the great majority are support personnel (A and B -echelon and other auxiliary personnel), do not engage in direct combat and are rarely exposed to threat. The F-echelon troops and their command structure will range in age from 18 to around 35 (from troopers to battalion and brigade commanders) – in Covid-19 terms, these are the ‘infected’. You also take NO ACCOUNT of opposition casualties, or of civilian casualties – sorry, but that is an inexcusable lapse.
Thirdly, you select only one example of ‘war’ – could this be because the numbers suit the narrative? And would another example provide something different? Planning doctrine generally allows for 5% casualties (killed, wounded) – empirically, here are some actual figures from SA’s own recent military history:
Over 10 weeks of operations, with a force size of approx 240 (2 X paratroop companies with trackers): Own forces killed – 13 (5.4%), opposition killed 116 (15.5% of an estimated force size of 500-750).
Over a 14-day airborne assault rehearsal (non-combat, involving a Bn Grp), with a combat force size of approximately 850: Casualties were 88 (1 killed (0.11%), 80 injured and hospitalized ‘in action’ (9.4%), 7 more injured and hospitalized in one of those ‘freaks of nature’ – a lightning strike (0.8%)).
So, I put it to you that the empirical evidence disproves your theory, at least in terms of the very selective statistics you used, that getting Covid-19 is more dangerous than going to war. For the younger age groups this is clearly false. This is provided, of course, that you’re talking about actual combat (or its Covid equivalent, namely actually getting infected). This, I believe, satisfies Popper’s idea of ‘falsifiability’ of a scientific theory.
Your claim is simply fear mongering and is akin to Cele’s public statements that the ‘virus is deadly’ and ‘it will kill you’ – it is not deadly and it almost definitely won’t kill you. But it is serious. Instead, proper, judicious and responsible preventative practice is needed, while at the same time trying to recover from the economic devastation that this misinformation and its consequent inappropriate ‘control’ actions have caused – especially lockdowns. I certainly agree that simple actions like good personal sanitization, mask-wearing (more-or-less supported by recent serious studies) and social-distancing, assist in slowing the spread (nothing stops it except ‘natural’ herd immunity or vaccination). Specific protection of those with co-morbidities is required. And a balance needs to be struck between ‘isolation’ and getting on with economic life. In general we cannot separate ourselves from nature, from the Biosphere – in fact, our own immune systems REQUIRE constant exposure and constant ‘re-calibration’; we otherwise run the risk of future increased vulnerabilities to other pathogens as a result of attempts to ‘remove ourselves from nature’. I note that we are the first species that has attempted to do this in 4.2 Bn years of evolution. It is as if we don’t understand that, for life to continue on Earth, there HAS to be death – what hubris! The very state of living requires that we face up to the possibility of death every single day of our lives. Think about that, instead of bemoaning the tendency of humans to take risks.
Might I suggest that, rather than dipping into areas in which you are not expert (military, immunology, epidemiology), you rather provide your opinion on the devastating consequences of lockdown on business in SA and, far more important, what we can best do about it. Your thoughts on the narcissistic exacerbation of the inequality between the ‘rich, safe elite’ and the ‘poor, vulnerable powerless’ would be appreciated. As would your thoughts on the imposition of lockdown rules, social distancing, and ‘sheltering in place’ on those for whom all these demands are impossible to carry out – and to whom they represent the end of their futures.
Here’s the Lancet reference:
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(20)30769-6/fulltext
There are many more such papers now available from a wide spectrum of respectable sources on ‘both sides’ of the argument as well as along the continuum between. As you said, one should avoid dogma, one fixed, immovable position.
Excellent response, thank you! Fully agree that he should apply HIS knowledge of business to the economic disaster that has been caused and not pontificate on medical and scientific issues (unless he has an actual deep knowledge of those).
Richard, thank you for your response to Foster-Pedley’s drivel. I was going to post my thoughts yesterday but got distracted. You took some of the words ‘right out of my mouth’. I find it disturbing when individuals/groups latch onto some statistic about COVID and then pontificate about how dangerous COVID is. Foster-Pedley should know better than that being a dean of a business school in RSA.
Yes.
Excellent article – seems to be stirring a response from trump ideologues and conspiracy theorist in South Africa
I am getting a bit tired of the “system” trying to scare me. I remember well how people behave when lockdown started. One family member insisted on changing clothes and leaving the “contaminated” clothes in the sun. He was very risk-averse because of all the scaremongering. Well, it wore off after a month, people were not dying en masse and the average citizen fell duped and the minister looked like a sheep. Now making a statement like Covid is more dangerous than war is really pushing the boundaries. The Afgan war was fought by the Coalition forces at a distance. The Afghans did not have fighter aircraft, Apache Helicopters, and advanced munitions. According to the BBC, 3500 coalition soldiers perished and 110 000 Afgan soldiers. The ratio is 31,4 Afghans for 1 Coalition soldier. If we simply multiply 31,4 with 2,7 then the Afgan attrition rate will compare with Covid. I did not find how many Afghans were in the war so the number will change. It gets worse, we have been living with Covid for less than one year, the Afgan war lasted 13 Years so multiply in simple terms our current Covid death rate times 13. Just for interest, 75 million people died in the first world. Mr Foster Pedly, make sure this nonsense is removed from the paper and shame on the editor.
I wear a mask when going out. I social distance. I do not muck about in public unnecessarily. I avoid crowds. I keep my hands clean. I don’t touch my face outside of my house. I wash or sterilise everything that comes through my door. I work from home unless its absolutely necessary to go out. I am still absolutely fine and intend to keep it that way. Its not that hard. I do feel for people who cannot take these precautions for good reason but I feel nothing for those who refuse to take these precautions.