The bettor way to deal with Covid

Nearly everybody has a Covid opinion and can cite their favourite experts in support, so it seems strange that one unimpeachable authority on human behaviour has been so little referenced.

Who else could I mean but Mr Kenny Rogers?

Some younger readers might not be too familiar with Rogers, who sadly has gone to that straight-whisky saloon in the sky, but he sang both kinds of music - country AND western - plus a Bee Gees song or two with friends.

In his magnificent treatise on applied psychology, The Gambler, Rogers gave us these astute observations:

"You’ve gotta know when to hold ‘em

Know when to fold ‘em

Know when to walk away

And know when to run"

That tells gamblers to keep a cool head and never “double down” on losses.

This advice is often expressed in other ways, such as "not throwing good money after bad”.

That these warnings aren't always heeded is why casinos operate in big swanky buildings and offer cheap or even free entertainment, food, drinks, accommodation and gaming chips.

Punters who set a "limit" on how much they are willing to lose always tempted to break that if their stake quickly disappears and they feel cheated.

These unfortunates don't know when to walk away, let alone when they should have been running faster than Usain Bolt being chased out of a bedroom by an angry boyfriend.

That why Las Vegas has a lot of pawn shops.

Behavourial psychology has a label for "chasing losses" – loss aversion, which means we are disproportionately upset by what we have lost or might lose compared to how happy we are to win or even stop losing. 

It’s easy to see how this applies to Covid. 

When Covid first filtered into Australia in 2020 the federal and state governments coordinated a four-week lockdown to “flatten the curve” so patients would not overwhelm hospitals.

This worked surprisingly well, you could say the gamble paid off big time, to the extent Covid was seemingly eliminated within Australia’s borders while it raged elsewhere.

However, that left a big question unanswered.

Was Australia prepared to basically lock itself away from the rest of world forever to remain “Covid-free”?

This was a seemingly unsustainable position, a losing hand you might say, even if two years later one Australian state still is hiding in its panic room.

It also transpired, not that surprisingly, that Covid given global expanses to romp in began rapidly mutating as respiratory viruses do.

The slower spreading Alpha, that Australia had so convincingly and seemingly easily seen off except for one exceptionally badly run state, gave way to more fleet-of-foot strains.

But the good news is that viruses don’t really have a stake in killing their hosts, which are their transmission vessels, so the later strains tend to became less deadly even if they spread more quickly.

Omicron is the latest iteration that has landed in Australia and it spreads so fast case numbers have climbed to previously unimaginable numbers.

However, the caseload seems to be a mix of Omicron and the previous more deadly Delta strain.

There is some evidence that Omicron gives natural immunity to the deadlier versions, although this is being debated.

The gamble of putting Australia in a sterile jar, where natural immunity was never likely to develop, begged the question of what the exit strategy was going to be.

On any reasonable interpretation Australia’s suppression/elimination strategy has done all it was going to do.

It staved off a mass Covid outbreak for two years, enough time for vaccines to be created and administered to most the population.

Also enough time to see a weaker strain emerge that apparently gives natural immunity to deadlier ones.

So, now is the time to cash in the elimination/suppression chips.

However, that’s not what seems to be happening in many states.

Even as Covid clearly sprints clear of containment new restrictions are being brought in.

Queensland is even delaying the start of the school year.

Mass testing, tracing and isolation rules remain in place leading to multiple crises as sectors struggle to find staff.

What is stopping Australia from walking away from its bet on suppression even as it shows ever diminishing returns for greater costs?

For two years governments have been positioning themselves as our saviours, while relentlessly pumping out Covid fear.

This obviously suits some leaders with a “daddy complex”.

Even for the leaders less invested in talking to us as children it is difficult to suddenly change course when capital cities have been locked down over one infection.

Perhaps there is also the confronting "loss aversion" question of whether elimination/suppression was ever the right strategy to begin with.

In terms of our children, we might tally up the education and opportunities denied to them as well as the mental health effects and burden of debt they will likely have to carry.

We could also consider the lives shattered and those likely and certainly lost, the economic devastation and the sheer mountains of misery Covid lockdowns have created.

But one thing that isn't much talked about is the "opportunity cost" of Australia's suppression and elimination measures.

By one estimate the cost of Australia’s Covid measures amounts to over $1 trillion.

That’s a one followed by 12 zeros.

Also that estimate was from September and spending has likely increased if anything.

By the article's reckoning every Covid life saved has cost $25 million.

This doesn't take into account that the average age of someone who dies "with Covid" in Australia is the same as life expectancy, 82.

Think of all the alternative – even life-saving things – that money could have been spent on, the inheritance that could have built for our kids.

With numbers that confronting  it’s no wonder there is a “loss aversion” reaction to ever letting the interminable cycle of Covid suppression end.

As Kenny Rogers sang in The Gambler: “You never count your money, when you're sittin' at the table. There'll be time enough for countin', when the dealin's done”.

That's if Australia can ever stop doubling down on the all-in bet of suppression.

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