Remarks On How To Do Better

We have learnt a few things from the early days of the pandemic:

• Treatment of sick people has improved and fewer of them die now.
• Distance between people is crucial for disrupting the transmission chain.
• Herd immunity is impossible to achieve without a vaccine.
• Risk of viral transmission through surfaces is minimal with the usual precautions.
• And the economy can function even under duress.

Unfortunately, we Europeans and probably others too, seem to have forgotten what exponential growth means. We were stunned when it happened in March and we are stunned again now.

In the summer, we ignored the voices of smart people who have studied numbers for all their lives. We thought that we were smarter because we understood numbers too and we did not see anybody getting sick around us. The press did its part by making us believe that the first "wave" was over, while it had really only slowed down. So we travelled to far-away places and had drinks with people of unknown Corona status. We did not ready our education system for things to come or prepared our restaurants for proper ventilation. We did not invest heavily in home tests nor did we create adequate protection for those who work for our food and for our health. We did not heed the warning about deficiencies in tracing of the infected and did not hire more people, just as we failed to increase the workforce in the hospitals.

What we were good at, though, was debating about what to do. Turning in circles. And secretly hoping that science might be wrong.

So, when numbers will have come down again in two months or so, here is what we could do:

• Acknowledge that the pandemic will last for years because only then will we be able to make long-term plans.
• Provide rapid tests to the population and financial support to poor people for their quarantine (see remarks from 19 September).
• Help create more space for people to socialise safely.
• Ready our education system for a mix of online and on-site learning.
• Enforce punishment for people and businesses who do not follow the rules. This is not the time for being lax. Punish a few rather than punish the entire population, such as with this renewed lockdown.
• And lastly, work on EU-wide legislation on how to handle future pandemics. This must include the creation of a EU health organisation akin to the (pre-Trump) CDC in the U.S. with far-reaching powers. Furthermore, the EU should be divided into small, county-sized regions that can be physically isolated from the rest (like bulkheads on a ship); legislation should be passed to revoke civil liberties for a month without parliamentary consent and for longer with a vote by the EU parliament (such as the right to congregate in public spaces); crucial medication should be manufactured and stockpiled inside the EU; and personnel should be trained and kept on call for contact tracing and quarantining.

We will then have a real chance to brave the next pandemic, just like the Pacific-Eastern nations (e.g. Taiwan) have braved the current one.

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