Covid-19 and evolutionary point-of-view

You can think about the Covid-19 pandemic from the evolutionary point of view. You have only one life. There is path dependence. If you die to this virus, everything else is irrelevant. This applies to all diseases and potentially other lethal events. The only smart thing to do is to minimize your odds of having to suffer from them. People who undermine the possible impact of the virus are, plain and simple, stupid. There are opportunity costs for minimizing the odds, but the opportunity costs of dying are infinite. You have to find the balance of avoiding the virus and the other life.

Instead of the survival of the fittest, this pandemic is about the survival of the most adaptable. People who thrived before the pandemic can have great problems in adapting to new conditions if they maximized their output compared to their resources before the pandemic. People who have slack in their lives are in pole position to survive Many lives are disrupted in one way or another. Some people suffer the wrath of the virus and most do not experience big effects. It is safe to say that some people are more adaptable for fighting this virus than others. Even young and healthy individuals have died to it. Nobody knows why it happened to them. From an evolutionary point of view, Covid-19 makes genes of the human race more adaptable to the current situation in total.

What about the necessary changes in this situation? Can you adapt your rhythms of life to the current situation with the virus? Can you change your schedule in a way that you can minimize the odds of possible contagion of the virus? Can you change your daily rhythms to make the change? Can you use trial and error if you have to go out to exercise or work out at home? Can you go out when others stay at home or do you follow a tight schedule? Can you work or do your chores like buying groceries from home? Can you find a place to live far away from others and grow your own food or cook it yourself? If you have not done these things before, can you reprogram your brains to do them?

Even though survival is the most important thing, you have to think about the financials. This situation brings higher-order effects. Some of these effects cause financial distress. Can you adapt your finances to the new situation or new world? This pandemic will have profound effects on the world, nations, companies, and individuals. Some financial rules will probably change. There will be no return to the past. Some nations, companies, and individuals will thrive financially while others will suffer. Many old successful business models will crash and new models will be born. Some industries will change permanently. Best-adapted companies will pay small money for the destroyed businesses that were in ok shape before the pandemic. They can become more successful. Companies and individuals who have cash and small fixed costs concerning their total costs and income can buy things cheaply.

It is a great time to make changes

Covid-19 pandemic is not all about doom and gloom. It is also a great time to make changes. When your life has changed, it is easier to make other changes too. For example, you can use your time more efficiently because some time wasters have disappeared. You do not have to use so many hours to get to work and back. You can also avoid colleagues who waste your time. You can arrange your work in a way that is not dependent on others. It can be easier to develop ways to become more productive in your work without explaining it to others. Or listening to them tell you it is a bad idea to do things differently because it is not the way we do things here.

This is also a great time to get rid of bad habits or other behavior or develop new ones. Bad habits can disappear if the trigger and the prize do not exist anymore. You are then forced to make changes and reprogram your brain. The paths of least resistance to growth with new behavior can be easier to develop. It can also be harder to reach out to old paths of least resistance because the physical and mental efforts can become too hard. You can also develop a better attitude to a crisis when you notice that you can survive this one and thrive after it. Do not be afraid of the future, because it can be better than you think and the odds to make changes are higher today than before the pandemic.

Until next time!

-TT

PS. Do you consider yourself a helpful person? If you found anything useful in this text, please teach it to your friends

Critical mass of social contagion and Covid-19

You can understand the Covid-19 pandemic and its impacts better with the latticework of mental models. You can also become better prepared for future pandemics with the latticework. Even though the virus is a biological phenomenon, it spreads through social contagions when the critical mass is achieved. If you understand social contagions better, you can see what needs to be done and how to cope with the pandemic better.

Covid-19 as a social contagion

Covid-19 spreads through the population with close human contacts. Like all social contagions, it has three parts. First, there are a significant few. They are people who spread the disease faster than the rest of the population. Second, social contagion needs to be sticky to spread. Third, it needs the right environment to spread. When all these three parts are in place, the virus soon becomes unstoppable, after the critical mass is achieved, unless you do something. When the critical mass is achieved, the growth accelerates exponentially, until it starts to decelerate. The contagion collapses eventually.

Let us start with the significant few who spread the virus faster than the rest of us. What is common with these people is that they have a better possibility to spread the virus. They meet lots of people and they have close contacts or they have close contacts with these people. They can be real estate agents, work in junk food restaurants or work in call centers, etc. They live in dense urban areas or use public transportation to commute to work. They are also people who have to work for a living, are workaholics, or do not care about minor illnesses like flu. The best way to stop or slow the pandemic is to focus on finding the significant few who spread the virus faster. Then you have to limit their odds of spreading the virus which means that you have to stop them to meet anyone.

In the second part, the stickiness factor is simple. One reason why COVID-19 is so sticky is that many people who spread it do not know they have it. They can spread it without knowing it and it is a problem. This fact is important because they have not tested people who do not have any symptoms. The other reason why it is sticky is explained by the fact that it does not kill people easily or fast. It is not like Sars which killed many more people compared to the number of infections and disappeared fast. The third factor which made it sticky is the length of high odds of spreading. Covid-19 can spread about two weeks from the first symptoms. One problem is that we do not know if it can spread even before the first symptoms arrive. I am not a professional. I have no exact data about the disease.

The environment is simple. Covid-19 spreads through social contacts. Urban areas with dense populations are ideal places to spread. It is hard to avoid social contacts when you live in a place like them. You cannot avoid all people in dense areas. It also spreads in events and places in which many people gather together closely. These events and places include sports events, weddings, public transportation, etc. These events and places have to be shut down when you want to avoid spreading the virus. All you need is a one-person with the virus and it spreads like a wildfire in a dry season.

The faster you can address all these factors and manipulate them, the less the virus spreads. If I am right about the latter, the first wave of the disease decelerates its spread faster in the countries which have focused on the factors than public offices have predicted. Time will tell us whether that is the case. When the contagions are dangerous like the pandemic, it is better to overreact than undermine its effect. If you want to stop spreading your actions have to be fast and decisive. Therefore, the actions that the public feels are not necessary, are smart things to do when it comes to social contagions with highly negative effects. And because this pandemic is a power-law event, you cannot predict it or its impact on societies.

The next text is about Covid-19 and evolution.

Until then,

-TT

PS. Do you consider yourself as a helpful person? If you found anything useful in this text, teach it to your friends.