“If everyone had worn a mask, then we would be done with this pandemic.”

“If everyone stayed at home, then this would be over.”

“It’s the Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, Green Party’s fault that this pandemic is still going on.”

These were common statements that people made during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, but none of these statements are true. Sars Cov-2 otherwise which caused the virus we named Covid-19 is to blame for this ongoing pandemic.

It’s time for us to admit that Democrats nor Republicans are not in control of this virus. Nature is in control of this virus.

I know it’s hard for people in the 21st century to grasp this concept but even with all of our advanced technology, human beings cannot control every single aspect of nature including viruses.

This is not an article about the efficacy of masks and the politicization of this virus but I want to make this point very clearly:

What we have needed most in this pandemic is HUMILITY

Our 21st-century hubris and our inability to live in uncertainty have contributed to the anxiety, hostility, and politicization of the response to this pandemic.

Scientists were able to develop a vaccine that is the best hope of containing this virus and rather than celebration, even that has turned into another culture war.

I recently listened to epidemiologist Dr. Michael Osterholm’s podcast 2 Doses of Vaccines and 1 Dose of Humility on YouTube (Link is at the end of this post) and he put it simply and clearly.

“What Mother Nature does with this virus is in of itself out of our control. With our public health mitigation strategies (distancing and such) we can limit the type of increases and decreases we see with this virus

but generally speaking, We’re not driving this tiger we are riding it.” – Dr. Michael Osterholm,

Ride the tiger…

This has become a controversial statement but I’ll echo Dr. Osterholm’s sentiments: Humans are not in control of this virus.

On his podcast, Dr. Osterholm stressed over and over again that even the brightest epidemiologists don’t know what is going to happen with this virus. They don’t know WHY the virus may sprint for a few weeks in certain regions and then burn itself out. This is a new virus and there is much to learn leading smart experts to answer: “I don’t know” when asked what will happen next.

We’re very uncomfortable with uncertainty in the 21st century because we are used to having the answers for everything. On the chance we don’t have the answers, then we google them.

During this pandemic, people immediately wanted to blame human behavior because we refused to acknowledge the truth: Nature outsmarted us.

On Twitter there was an incident recently where someone was extremely upset about catching Covid: This person wore her mask religiously, she didn’t go out much, and she even got vaccinated…yet she still got Covid with mild symptoms (because she was fully vaccinated). Rather than accepting that this is a highly transmissible respiratory virus, and thanks to the vaccines she wasn’t seriously ill, the person decided to blame others because she caught a highly transmissible virus.

As Dr. Osterholm so wisely stated, We aren’t driving this tiger, we are riding it.

We can do all of the “right things” and still become ill because the virus (especially this Delta variant) is a highly transmissible and aerosolized virus. As much as this virus should not have been politicized, it also should not have been moralized. Nobody is “unclean” and should have to join a Covid colony if they become ill with a highly contagious respiratory illness

A failure of leadership

Due to all of the information at our fingertips in the twenty-first century, our society has an inability to deal with uncertainty. It has become a modern malaise to not be able to cope with uncertainty and disruption.

This pandemic is not a unique event in the course of human history. Every generation has had to deal with uncertainty and disruption due to Wars, Famines, Pandemics, and other natural disasters. The difference between survival and destruction in these events can be found in leadership.

Our leadership in the United States failed us tremendously during this pandemic which led to the current division, confusion, and polarization we’re currently experiencing. Our leaders needed a serious dose of humility when dealing with a once in a 100-year pandemic.

Rather than humbly admitting to the public that as humans we are not in control of a virus, our leaders got in front of the microphone to make grand proclamations about “Crushing the Virus” or making statements that weren’t rooted in reality such as “It will just go away like a miracle.”

To add there is no more futile endeavor than declaring war on a virus. A virus is ever-evolving and constantly mutating.

The inability to deal with uncertainty also caused leaders to take pointless actions to look like they were doing “something” in order to STOP THE VIRUS like closing local playgrounds (They reopened once medical professionals pushed back and said it was unnecessary).

The Ugly Truth: Covid behaves in mysterious ways

There is an ugly truth that leaders from both political parties and the media don’t want to acknowledge because it would cost them money and support.

The ugly truth is Human behavior (except for vaccination) plays a very small role in all of the surges of the virus.

Texas and Florida opened up earlier in the Summer with packed stadiums and a drop of Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions (NPI’s) like masks and not only did they NOT experience surges in the number of Covid cases and hospitalizations, these places experienced drops in Covid cases and hospitalizations. Yet here we are in late summer with a sizable surge in both places.

If it feels like Covid is unpredictable, then it’s because it is. To quote the New York Times Morning Brief Newsletter

Covid behaves in Mysterious Ways.

Remember: Covid behaves in mysterious ways. But Americans should not assume that Delta is destined to cause months of rising caseloads. Nor should they assume that a sudden decline, if one starts this summer, fits a tidy narrative that attributes the turnaround to rising vaccination and mask-wearing. (Source New York Times NewsLetter: More Covid Mysteries)

Due to the heavy politicization of mask-wearing, lockdowns, and vaccines, people looked to blame human behavior for the surges of the virus but Dr. Osterholm who is quoted in this newsletter argues.

“These surges have little to do with what humans do,” – Dr. Michael Osterholm

Dr. Osterholm’s posture is not one of nihilism but one of humility. If we only had leaders who would communicate to the public then much of our panic, hysteria, and hostility would begin to subside.

Humility provides freedom

When it comes to Covid, People are trapped by their political ideologies, misinformation, and their belief that their behavior can control a highly transmissible virus that is spread by aerosols.

Humility is defined as freedom from pride or arrogance. We hear a lot about freedom these days but perhaps if we approach the virus with humility that will free us from blaming one another for the spread of Covid, guilt if we catch Covid, and anxiety because we will accept that Covid is here to stay and that at some point we will all be infected.

As John Hopkins, Infectious Disease physician and epidemiologist Stefan Baral (@sdbaral) said on Twitter August 8

#ZeroCovid will never happen. 1) Vaccines prevent severity, but less so infection. 2) Lots (and lots) of animal reservoirs. 3) Asymptomatic infection (especially with vaccines). No one likes #COVID19, but it is time to accept that this virus is now part of this world. Forever.

Covid is here to stay. There was even a surge of the Delta variant in the San Francisco Bay Area where I live which is hardly Florida or Texas politically. Our region has a high vaccination rate, people are religious about masks, and people are very cautious about going out.

“We’re going to have to live with this for a while,” said Dr. Yvonne Maldonado, an infectious disease expert at Stanford. “And we are reaching the point where people have to just settle into that. We have to get back to some kind of a normal life. We can’t keep living like this. But normal life now may be different.”

Solano County Health officer Dr. Bela Maytas said that people need to face facts that Covid isn’t going away

“Now we are at a time when we pretty much have to face facts: This disease will be with us chronically. There’s nothing about it that indicates it’s going away any time soon,” Matyas said. As long as hospitalizations and deaths don’t spike again, “the fact that a lot of people are getting sick from a disease we can’t get rid of, that’s normal. In fact, this (reopening) has been an enormous success.” (Source SF Chronicle: As delta surges, Bay Area reaches realization that COVID ‘will be with us chronically’, July 24, 2021)

We’re missing it

Over a year after Covid-19 caused the world to come to a complete stop, I am afraid we are missing important lessons that a once-in-generation pandemic could teach us.

One of the key lessons is that we cannot control how the virus behaves but we can adjust our response to how the virus behaves as necessary and learn lessons so that we are better prepared the next time around.

Instead of responding with humility and truth, our arrogance and pride have reduced our response to political tribalism, terrible leadership, and noble lies from leaders to coerce the public into complying with public health measures.

It’s fine for leaders to say, I don’t know what’s going to happen. I would actually trust that person over the person who tells me comforting lies to make me feel better. Dr. Osterholm commented that every morning he gets up and cleans the mud off of his crystal ball because he has been wrong so many times.

The best thing for leaders to do at this point is, to tell the truth: Nobody can predict what the virus will do next, and other than being vaccinated it is beyond our control.

There may be a variant in the future that doesn’t respond to vaccines but we haven’t seen it yet. Rather than scaring people with the possibilities and worst-case scenarios, leaders can admit we don’t know what the future holds but we’re going to do our best to partner with science in order to develop therapeutics and vaccines to save as many lives as possible.

The bad news is that this just isn’t happening and we still have leaders stoking political fires, pretending that everything will go back to normal soon, and pretending that if we just do x,y,z this will all go away. I’m afraid this strategy is just adding to our woes instead of helping us to come to terms that we lost many people due to this virus along with many losing businesses, jobs, and kids losing more than a year of school.

The good news is that we have vaccines that can help prevent severe disease which is great news for our most vulnerable in society and also medical professionals. The vaccines are our best chance at “defanging” the virus.

“One of the important lessons of this coronavirus pandemic This virus is doing what it’s doing and we have at best, limited ability to change that short of vaccines. If we could vaccinate the world, then that would be a different story.” – Dr. Michael Osterholm, 2 Doses of Vaccine, 1 Dose of Humility

Everyone wants this pandemic to be over tomorrow, but as I said last year I’m preparing for the long haul. The 1918 influenza pandemic killed 50 million people worldwide and 675,000 in the United States. The pandemic lasted for three years and the first flu vaccine was licensed for civilian use in 1945.

The mortality rate from Covid isn’t nearly as high (especially when adjusted for population) but again the virus is unpredictable and we need to approach the situation with as much humility as possible.

To use Dr. Osterholm’s analogy I would much rather ride the tiger than underestimate it and be eaten alive.

Mother Nature has been around longer than we have. I will bet on her every single time.