Peer Pressure -Covid Response

When people face extraordinary situations, they suspend thinking and outsource that to others. It always happens during emergencies. Our minds do not function properly, lose clarity. We want others to think for us since the burden of pain clouds the thinking process. It is fine at an individual level since we leave that to the hands of someone trusted, but when it comes to countries, they should evaluate every response that is being followed by others before walking on the road trodden by others. If one waits to see sucess from the person who went ahead, it would be great but when we do not wait for that and join the others walking that road, we suspend our free will, our judgement and go with the HERD. 

Despite brilliant individual thinking, herd thinking prevailed in following a response based on faulty initial forecast (which later was revised twice). Economists started giving Armageddon forecasts even before scientists studied the nature of the virus and the effect on a healthy body with strong immunity. It was assumed that there would be no resistance to the virus and there would be no recoveries when infected. Such harmful assumptions extrapolated the graphs based on which fear engulfed thinking.

Leaders became focused on saving lives. They turned to history and found lockdown a solution but it worked in limited areas and restricted to isolating the infected areas but in this case, the virus was already there. No one knew the extent of the virus and hence a 4 week lockdown was imposed. This initial lockdown helped countries to plan for the pandemic.  Even in these days, the supply chain which had perishable raw material shouldn’t have been closed and termed essential.  

Never in history had entire country and every activity suddenly suspended. It never happened. So not having a precedent to borrow from, countries marched on the road trodden by others without even customizing the definitions for their countries based on their division of labor. Subsequent lockdown extensions were also guided by this collective thinking ignoring the positive news from those countries who refused to follow the herd and acted of their own free will for the good of their countries.

The countries that did not walk the trodden road and instead adopted the road not trodden have their economies running well without any disruptions. Countries are now realizing that the pains their economy has endured are self-inflicted. There were means of protecting key sectors of economy while ensuring lives were saved as well but in Panic, they weren't explored at all & a blanket shutdown was imposed. Scientists base their responses on health data, not societal upheavals or economic data.