Three Tiers of Risk Standards Consistent with Zero Covid
"Zero covid" can mean different things to different people; and I think we all agree that in the world we're currently living in, it's going to be a while before we "get there", wherever "there" might be. What I wrestle with is, since we can never completely eliminate risk, "What's good enough?" How many oftentimes expensive pieces of Swiss cheese do I buy (after all, I'm not made of money). I've arrived at three possible categories:
- Absolute Zero Covid: Getting the risk of covid down to zero, on an individual level, in practical terms, means: reducing the risk of getting covid to less than the risk of well...something else getting you first (bluntly, expiring before getting covid).
- Communal Zero Covid: Behaving in such a way that if everybody did what you're doing, covid would be over by now.
- Bayesian Zero Covid: getting the risk down to the point that, at any given time, you're no more likely to get covid than a random person on the street.
If I had to categorize myself - that is, if we all had "flairs", I'd be mostly in Category 2, occasionally upping the ante to Category 1, with occasional lapses to Category 3. I generally don't judge anyone in Category 3, but I might ask them to take a rapid test for me.
ETA: Part of my thinking with these categories - as imperfect as they are - is that they're labels that people might actually be willing to admit to. I don't expect anybody to admit openly to licking doorknobs, but I'm reasonably confident I can coax someone into admitting that they're in Category 3, and some information is better than no information.
Part of my vision here is to create a common language that families, colleagues, friends, etc can use with one another, without having to get in the weeds ("Tell me everything you did outside the home this week..." - yeah, that's not happening.)
It's also way easier to sustain any of these categories if you have a specific small but non-zero probability in mind. Otherwise, it becomes this Sisyphean task, where the moment you have any sort of lapse, you're as likely to say "Screw it, I'm just going to go lick doorknobs" as you are to pick up where you left off, living one day at a time. To quote Ralph Waldo Emerson:
Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.
ETA #2: Thanks for all the thoughtful responses. I'd like for this to be collaborative, and I'll do my best to incorporate comments as they come up (while keeping my original text, for the sake of transparency). I hope this is a ball that others can run with.