This is it right here. It's damn near the whole story.
I don't know quite where it comes from—gerontocracy, bureaucracy, inequality, status-quo bias, anti-expertise—but America's exceptional COVID case count comes from a national epidemic of unlearning.
theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
I don't know quite where it comes from—gerontocracy, bureaucracy, inequality, status-quo bias, anti-expertise—but America's exceptional COVID case count comes from a national epidemic of unlearning.
theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
I've never forgotten something @NAChristakis told me back in March.
An epidemic is a race between duel contagions—the biological contagion (the host-seeking virus) and the social contagion (the population's ability to learn and adapt).
An epidemic is a race between duel contagions—the biological contagion (the host-seeking virus) and the social contagion (the population's ability to learn and adapt).
There are many ways I've been surprised and impressed by the public's adaptation. In April, I remember seeing a long, long line at my Trader Joe's w/ ppl uniformly in masks and distanced—something unimaginable three weeks prior and then suddenly totally normal and near-universal.
But this beautiful, organic groundswell of public adaptation just hasn't been matched—not even remotely equalled, I think—by a similarly impressive and nimble institutional response by our public health system. The tide went out, and the emperor was swimming naked.
