Bad Decisions Kill People

Learn From Past Mistakes to Prevent Future Catastrophes

Coronavirus is all over the news. The World Health Organization now says that coronavirus is a global health emergency. (Why it took them this long to decide on that while the rest of the world and those who run the stock markets knew this truth is for another blog.)

Old issue – new name

Coronavirus, Ebola, MERS, SARS, Zika–the biology changes, but the problem does not. Every one of these diseases hits the news, threatening to become a pandemic that could wipe out massive populations. Why isn’t there a clear plan to address this threat...or the next one… or the next one?

And there WILL be a next one.

I am not talking about scientific cures, I am talking about a plan to address the threat and protect the public. While we don’t know the name of the next plague, it’s obvious that we need a solution to this very predictable, recurring, inevitable problem.

I covered this in a blog more than four years ago. Yet, here we are again...

Another threat with a grave lesson that we should learn before it’s too late 
(and eventually it will be too late)

One of the best ways to improve future outcomes is to learn from past mistakes–preferably someone else’s mistake. When you make a mistake and then make the same mistake again, it’s pretty clear that you didn’t learn from your prior error. 

Like the old adage: The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. 

So, what has this got to do with Coronavirus? 

Everything. 

Remember Ebola–the deadly West African virus that, in 2014, had millions of Americans fearing a rapidly spreading epidemic was imminent? The plight in Western Africa had been international news for some time, but when healthcare workers came back to the United States with actual or possible cases of Ebola, we didn’t know what to do. Suddenly, Ebola was a hot topic and a huge concern. 

Ebola is a highly contagious disease. In October 2014, The New Yorker published an in-depth article on Ebola, highlighting a promising possible treatment called ZMapp. Unfortunately, the supply of these treatments had been exhausted, and only 20–80 new ZMapp treatments could be made each month. 

The possible outcome of this shortage could have been catastrophic if the disease hit a congested urban area. The amount of people with Ebola would vastly exceed the available treatments, which would lead to widespread deaths, panic, and social outrage over how people were chosen to receive the limited amount of medicine. 

This is not a Hollywood movie, this was perilously close to reality!

Thankfully, a major outbreak did not happen. No one in the United States who had not been to West Africa died of the disease. This is great from a human standpoint, but there is a reason it’s not all good news.

No Pain=No Gain

With the exception of the isolated families who were directly impacted, there was no pain. From the position of preventing a worse future outcome by making some important decisions, no pain in this case meant no analysis of the past to better plan for the future.  If there were massive deaths, we would have established a Congressional investigation. There were no massive deaths, so nothing got done!

No one launched initiatives to construct state-of-the art isolation centers. No one established protocols on how to quarantine possible patients carrying a deadly disease while ensuring that these people, who are almost always healthcare workers, are treated with dignity and respect while they are quarantined. 

Not using past experience to plan for the future will set us up to be just as unprepared for the next crisis as we were last time. 

MERS/SARS/EBOLA/CORONAVIRUS/FILL IN THE BLANK 

It is nearly guaranteed that there will be another crisis. And if we are not prepared, the next crisis could be catastrophic. This is a predictable train wreck that we can see coming. 

Any sound plan for success would involve decisions that lead to the best-case scenario and prevent a catastrophic outcome. We are talking about human lives. Wouldn’t now be the time to invest in some better decisions?