Small Mercies

 It is dawning on many of us that the coronavirus will disrupt our lives for many more months. We are bracing ourselves now for wave of infections, and the winter has not started yet. Surely there will be at least one further wave in the new year, though the exact timing will vary by region. After that we can be a bit more optimistic, from the possible combination of a widely available vaccine, the convenience of a do-it-yourself instant test, the return of warmer weather and further improvements to treatments.

 

In most countries we will have to live with the existing diet of restrictions. We will have to wear masks in public, avoid large gatherings, work from home where possible, accept constraints on schooling and live without any live culture. The only places where the restrictions can be less are where a combination of isolation and effective testing and tracing can eliminate the virus and stamp it out immediately whenever it reappears.

 

It is unfashionable to praise China, and of course the Chinese erred at the very start of the pandemic and in maintaining food practices that made it more likely in the first place. But it is wonderful how compliance and technology have enabled China to remove most restrictions. China is not an isolated island like New Zealand or even Taiwan, but a huge landmass with porous borders and high levels of internal travel. Yet they have suppressed the virus. Last week a Chinese city with the population of New York City was tested en masse. We tend to scoff at such things, saying we would not like to live in a country of such strict requirements to comply with state instructions. But when I think about it, just now I’d much rather live in China than in the shambles of the USA.

 

It reminds me of when I was growing up in the UK and we scoffed at the USA for its perfect teeth and two car families and its air conditioning and suburban mansions. We told ourselves we would not like to live in such a place, but we were lying to cover our envy and our shame. I suspect that over the next thirty years we, especially Americans, will have ever-increasing cause to create similar lies about China.

 

As we are forced to accept the reality of continuing restrictions, virus fatigue is becoming more prevalent, and I fear that many people will slide into depression. As humans we can endure a lot, but endurance is much easier when it is time limited. We will all have to work even harder to keep ourselves cheerful and to help those around us who are vulnerable.

 

We are especially at risk here in the USA, because we have a second reason to become depressed, namely the shameful politics. I predict that this too will have a dawning reality, soon after November third. If Trump should somehow win that dawning reality will be truly horrific, but we also will have to face up to consequences if he loses. Trump won’t just go away. Indeed, I see in his recent tactics that he is less interested in winning and more interesting in creating a loyal base to maintain a lucrative celebrity brand as a former president. He is stoking up his base more than ever, and doing so by casting suspicions and hate and conspiracy. He can use all this after a defeat, to the continuing cost of all of us.

 

So how can we avoid depression? One immediate remedy is to turn off twitter and facebook for a few weeks. I watched the first presidential debate but have decided to avoid the second one – why should I condemn myself to another night of lost sleep?

 

Part of the wider answer lies in counting our blessings. Firstly, most of us can recognise that our own hardships pale into insignificance compared with many others. I cannot sing or go to concerts, poor me. But I do still have an income and a bank balance and a home and a family and robust health. Perhaps sacrificing a few restaurant meals is not too bad when we think of what others are going through.

 

Then there are all the small blessings we can enjoy. Recently, I’ve paid special attention to relishing those things that were unavailable in April but possible now. I find it especially important to do this, because I fear the next move is more likely to take us back towards April than forwards into more possibilities.

 

One blessing is the return of live sports. Stuck indoors, we need some distractions, and live sports are important for me. I have got used to the absence of crowd noise. I especially applaud the organisers of those sports that have managed to return relatively safely. 

 

Three weeks ago the indoor pool at my local gym reopened, and I have resumed swimming. In truth I never enjoyed it much, swimming was always little more than the least painful way to avoid getting fatter, but now I am making sure I am thankful that I can swim.

 

A couple of months ago we started going to regular mass. We attend the church where I sang before the pandemic, and of course I miss that terribly, and it would even be preferable if others were singing beyond a lone cantor. But mass is still calming and beautiful and a purpose to leave the house and a source of community, with friendly faces even if we cannot see smiles. I also volunteer cantor myself now at another church, so can perform at least once a week.

 

Then last week I went back for the first time to the old folks home where we volunteer, to drive a resident to a medical appointment. This involved two long commutes there on public transport, the first of them in pouring rain to take a coronavirus test – three hours arduous travel for one minute of unpleasant activity. But wow, did I appreciate the opportunity to serve there again, even if I had to stay in the reception area and met very few old friends.

 

I can add in many other blessings, from increased family time to walking and reading and digital choirs. But there is some extra magic from being able to experience something that had been taken away for a while, especially when there is a risk that it might be taken away again. These are things to cherish.

 

I noticed one rather sad feature when I visited the home. I had expected a warm and exuberant welcome. Usually the place is full of kind outgoing human energy, from residents, staff and nuns alike. This time people were courteous, but some of the energy was not there.

 

It reminded me very strongly of the time in my life when I associated with addicts and their friends and families. I noticed that these people had learned behaviour to help them endure hardship and prepare for likely setbacks. They tended to be rather introverted and stoic. They celebrated small successes and constantly seemed to expect problems and used some of their energy internally as a reserve for when things would go wrong.

 

I found it an intensely sad way to live but also an impressive one. A life without colour or optimism or exuberance is a limited one, but somebody prepared to sacrifice such things deserves congratulation. Many of the teachings and sayings of the twelve step processes encouraged this sort of attitude.

 

This was exactly the attitude I encountered at the home. Of course enduring the pandemic there is tougher than it is for most of us. Residents are largely confined to their rooms and the fear of the virus is everywhere. Masks are also a bigger hardship for the hard of hearing.

 

So, unless we are lucky enough to live in China or New Zealand, we need to knuckle down for many more months of restrictions punctuated by setbacks. We can cope if we look after each other and if we look after ourselves. Counting our blessings is perhaps our most powerful tool.      

The Economist Misses the Point

This has been a tough year in many ways, and many familiar solaces have had to be discarded for the duration of the pandemic. That has made the pleasurable things that we can still enjoy all the more important, and one of those is reading. My weekly periodicals have assumed an even greater role in my health and sanity, not least because of their honest and detailed coverage of the pandemic itself.

 

The Economist is the best. For me it is the Amazon of journalism. It follows a relentless pursuit of clear and worthwhile goals, and as a result steadily builds competitive advantage to trample rivals in a self-reinforcing loop. As quality local newspapers, then national newspapers, then TV news channels have retreated towards celebrity flimflam on the way to obsolescence, The Economist strides forward vacuuming up market share. The BBC is clinging on, and a few quality papers are still strong, but the depth of their coverage compared with ten years ago has declined. Who now have people on the ground in many African countries? Who can give a thoughtful and content-sourced article on Nagorno Karabakh? Who can write beyond the propaganda to document how China is truly developing? Increasingly, there is only one player in town.

 

The Economist can still be annoying, notably their persistence in retaining some MI5 jerk to contribute cold war rubbish once per month or so. The review of Scott Anderson’s CIA exposé The Quiet Americans plainly required much iteration with internal censors.

 

The weekly feature writers are generally excellent, most notably Chaguan in China. Bartleby is plainly a cynical old fart like me and I am in awe of his self-deprecating humour. Lexington manages to retain some decorum and distance amidst the chaos of current US politics.

 

For me the weakest of the regular features tends to be Free Exchange. These contributors give a sense of intellectual snobbery and orthodoxy. Most of the others seem to be curious and to a more diverse range of inputs. Having said that, this week’s Free Exchange challenging conventional wisdom comparing policies to respond to climate change was excellent.

 

But the Free Exchange article Which Market Model is Best from a couple of weeks ago to me typifies the former less curious Economist. The article started well by describing emerging models of capitalist economies, describing LME’s, CME’s and PME’s, the initial letter referring to limbering, coordinated and political. Think the US, Germany and China as archetypal examples.

 

The article then compared the performance of the archetypes during the pandemic, finding much evidence to support the guiding principles behind the various models. LME’s rely more on individuals and markets rather than institutions, so initial responses were often haphazard, while on the other hand most of the game-changing innovation is coming out of LME’s, with the UK given a particular shout out. CME’s appear more organised in the face of a challenge like the pandemic, able to forge a more coherent strategy to keep ahead of a crisis, while their innovation is more likely to be incremental. PME’s can mobilise radical actions quickly with compliance, as China’s ruthless suppression of the pandemic exemplifies, but it was in China that corruption and fear allowed the pandemic to take hold in the first place.

 

These are all good arguments, but the article completely loses its way when it decides it should issue awards, declaring which of the models is the best within the context of the pandemic. Old dogmas kicked in. Whereas many Economist contributors have started to regularly challenge LME orthodoxy, such enlightenment has yet to reach the Free Exchange office. Incredibly, first prize in the pandemic was awarded to LME’s.

 

This is stretch worthy of a Trump campaign advert. Surely we have to start with the figures. Where are the most preventable deaths occurring? Where is civil society most under strain? LME’s remain an unholy mess, even six months or more after initial outbreaks. Compare the US and Canada, the UK and Germany, Brazil and Uruguay and The Philippines and China. True, raw competence, context and luck play a part, but it is hard to argue that many LME’s are relatively safe, calm or fair places just now.

 

If Free Exchange had not started from intellectual categories like innovation, and not felt constrained by seeking arguments to justify a pre-determined first prize, it might have provided more useful insight. An examination of why more people are dying and suffering in LME’s might have been more effective.

 

LME’s tend to lead to high and growing inequality, which is an important root cause of pandemic failure in a number of ways. An unequal society often has a large minority living in cramped conditions with no savings and restricted access to medical care. These communities as a vulnerable economically as there are from a health perspective, and have less opportunity to comply with guidelines to restrict virus spread.

 

Then there is the looser concept of a coherent society. LME’s emphasise individual agency and downplay the role of government and institutions. It is no surprise that “we are all in this together” rings less true and that trust in government guidelines is low, leading to low compliance. Empathy for those of different tribes can vanish.

 

Arguably, simple competence becomes an issue in LME’s over time. At least I could argue that while marketing might become stronger, patient project management can suffer. It is more likely in LME’s that medical and other technical competences are allocated towards capital accumulation of citizen’s welfare.

 

I also trust an economic recovery more in a CME than an LME, although that has yet to be proven. LME’s crave growth driven by consumption, and that requires everybody to spend. Even before the pandemic, this could only be sustained by ever-increasing personal debt, and a sudden shock has seen the edifice crashing down. It will take more than a few stimulus checks to rebuild; indeed arguably it will not be possible to rebuild at all without discarding some LME shibboleths.

 

The most damning argument that Free Exchange could make against PME’s was that corruption and nepotism would make any innovation untrustworthy. It is a fair point, and I certainly won’t rush to take a vaccine only approved in China or Russia. But, as Kamala Harris said on Wednesday night, if Fauci tells me a vaccine is safe then I’ll be first in line, but if the recommendation comes from Trump, count me out. It is not only PME’s where trust becomes fatally eroded.

 

I like the model classifications, and Free Exchange is right that they can produce insights. Like all models it is incomplete and has fuzzy edges: an incompetent PME or one without civic goals will always perform worse than a CME or LME with competence. Many economies will be hybrids and evolve over time.

 

Still, the method of taking an important issue and using it to compare outcomes between models and analyse root causes can be powerful. The Economist generally does this well, but not when the winner is declared before the analysis starts. Free Exchange, you can do better. Get out more.   

A Word in Your Ear

 For as long as I can remember, I have been somewhat deaf. My right ear performs well, but my left one significantly less so. I can’t remember what first triggered me to realize this, because it is possible to live with partial deafness without being aware of it, a bit like living with a weakened sense of smell: the only gauge I have really is myself, so as long as there is no change, how can I tell of any disability?

 

One of my favourite books is Deaf Sentence by David Lodge. Funny and touching, the book chronicles exploits of a character of about my age, and I can empathise with all of it. I recommend it as reading for anybody who might be deaf or who interacts with somebody who is – I suppose that encompasses most of us.

 

More men have hearing impairment than women, and for most it is correlated with ageing. I suppose I am rather lucky that my hearing appears very stable.

 

The clearest symptom of deafness is in some ways the opposite of what we might assume. True, it can be revealing when somebody struggles to make out what you are saying. But I find that usually deaf people talk more loudly than others.

 

Have you noticed how you always shout into your mobile phone, especially when outdoors? We all do, and on a subway carriage it can be both annoying and funny to witness people screaming into a device. Our bodies are reacting to a difficulty in hearing the other end of a conversation. Somehow we assume that the other side is talking too quietly, so we react by talking louder ourselves as a signal to them. In my experience, most of the deaf people I meet are the ones who habitually talk louder. I include myself on this list.

 

One sad effect of the pandemic has been to exclude us from the old people’s home where we volunteer. There nearly everybody is deaf, simply because they are so old. They can’t hear, so they shout. Often I will serve a table of residents with their dinner and walk away but continue to hear their conversation clearly. They might not be so candid if they knew I could hear them. It may be true that I have no idea how to serve a sandwich, but most of them would be ashamed to tell me to my face, yet that is what they are effectively doing.

 

Hearing is a poor relation among the senses, at least compared with sight. We are all encouraged to test our eyes regularly through our lives, and technology has evolved to offer effective, though overpriced, remedies. I took Lasik eye surgery about fifteen years ago and would also recommend that. By contrast, most deaf people don’t even know they are deaf, and until recently hearing aids were awkward, ineffective and very expensive.

 

I am happy to report that this is changing, and I’m delighted that eighteen months ago I checked what was available, something I’ve done from time to time for a while. The diagnostic process was efficient and my doctor was kind enough to whisper that I should visit Costco, of all places, to buy a hearing aid. Specialists are still charging thousands, but Costco has the same or better technology and better service for a tiny fraction of the price. My single hearing aid was $800, not trivial but perhaps my best investment of the last few years considering the benefits to everyday living. I love it, and it is so unobtrusive that the only people who ever notice I am wearing it are other people who use hearing aids.

 

For me, a singer, the biggest benefit was in how I was able to hear music in a choral setting. I had always experienced that I could hear the singer on my right loud and clear, sometimes too loud and too clear, might sound from the one on my left was barely audible. I expected the hearing aid to remedy this but it did far more. The actual effect was a bit like the difference between listening in mono and stereo. The whole sound came to life for me thanks to my hearing aid, and I am convinced it has made me a much better singer.

 

All of this is preamble. The pandemic has been tough for all of us, but spare a thought for those of us who are hard of hearing.

 

The pandemic will have made it obvious to most of us how much we listen with our eyes. But listening has become so much harder lately with everybody wearing masks. Firstly, the mask itself obscures the sound of the talker, especially clarity of consonants. Next, we often have additional hurdles such as standing farther apart and Perspex screens. But the worst part is that we can’t read the lips of our interlocutor, but have only our ears to rely on.

 

For the most part I suppose I am no worse off than anybody else because my hearing aid corrects most of the deficiency. But the correction is not total, and in the summer I sometimes did not wear my hearing aid, because the one thing it does not like at all is moisture, and humid weather makes ears and everything else more moist. None of this helps outdoor dining, with all its ambient noise. Furthermore, I suspect I am a better lip reader than most people, simply because I have had more recourse to using it than people with perfect ears, so my disadvantage in not seeing somebody else’s mouth may be greater.

 

I have noticed one other disadvantage. I’m sure anybody who wears glasses have noticed how masks make them fall off more, simply because there is more clutter on the face and around the ears. Now imagine adding a hearing aid to that equation! I’m so happy to be singing again, with a mask on, as volunteer cantor at a local church. But I’m sure the congregation are taking much amusement from the sight of me trying to stop my glasses falling off, as my left ear is completely overloaded with devices and objects.

 

I concede this has been a very convoluted way to relate a modest anecdote. But there may be a few other takeaways available.

 

Firstly, now may be a very good time to establish if you are a bit deaf. Understanding through a mask is a handicap for everybody, but do you find you are really struggling? If so check your experience with others and test out different things, such as standing to favour one ear then the other. Ask people if you shout down your phone more than most people.

 

If you come away with some doubts then get a hearing test. In most developed countries the costs have come down and the remedies have improved.

 

Next, try to be tolerant of people who are struggling to understand what you are saying. And try to annunciate consonants more clearly than usual. I promise you we are doing our best and it is not easy.

 

Next, I wonder if there is an opportunity here for producers of masks and of spectacles. Asia’s experience suggests that masks are here to stay in our lives. I see people putting effort into fashion, but not yet into design.

 

Finally I wonder if deafness is part of the cause of some other things we are witnessing. I watched the gruelling and depressing Presidential debate on Tuesday. True, they were not wearing masks, but here were three old dudes standing farther apart than they usually would. I wonder how many of them are a bit deaf? I wonder how many even know? Certainly they were shouting enough. Biden in particular seemed a little slow to pick up what was being said in the cacophony.