It’s been about a decade since I last discussed risk.  Given the pandemic and how folks are reacting to it, it’s clear that this is the time we need to have another review of what risk does or does not entail. (The problem is that too many folks impose their political beliefs on situations- so the risk (or non-risk) of a given path is often lost in the weeds.)

I don’t know how many of you recall the ‘DC Sniper’ situation.  Back in 2002, many folks considered those three weeks of terror to have been random shootings.  My ex-wife was livid that I allowed our (then 10 year old) son to cavort in the the street and the parks.  She was petrified that he would be murdered by the (now known to be two) perpetrators.

My philosophy was colored by an article that Ihad read in the Jerusalem Report.  (This wonderful magazine no longer exists as a stand-alone project.  It is a now an occasional adjunct to the Jerusalem Post- but vastly different politics.)  The article was aptly called “The Fxxx-It Factor”, something we now term FIF.  That article described how the residents of Jerusalem were reacting to the terror campaign raining over the area at the time.  The article mapped out four different types of people.

The first group mapped out where the terrorist exploded their bombs, and excluded those areas from potential travel (since they considered these areas to be prime targets). The second group used the same maps, but considered those areas inherently safe (since the terrorists would not likely attack the same area twice). The third group thought they employed more science in their analysis- they mapped out those locations bombed, looked for similar places, and avoided both types. The fourth group, the one with which I identify, said “fxxx it, whatever happens- happens; you can’t predict random events”.

That’s how I reacted to the DC Sniper scenario.  I had determined that the snipers were not choosing their targets, but selecting them at random. (That, it turns out, was not totally true- the snipers were employing random targets, up until the moment they could kill John Muhammed’s wife, which he was hoping would be attributed to be yet another random target.)

Why do I bring up these political events? Because it’s absolutely clear that we (not just Americans, although that is the matter at hand) are unable to clearly discern what is risk, as well as what could be an  acceptable risk to take in our daily lives,, As such, it’s clear that when it comes to technological risks, where we barely understand the basic concepts, we are at a total loss.

Which brings up COVID-19 and the pandemic.  We – Americans and citizens of the world- can only survive this pandemic when we are able to discern risk and effect risk management.  That’s why I am amazed how so many folks refuse to accept the data we receive from our public health experts.  Why folks rely on talking heads or political figures who pull things out of their anus.  (Come on- it’s clear to any living soul that we haven’t “turned the corner”.  Or, that the SARS-CoV-2 virus will disappear tomorrow.  How many tomorrows will you give this lying politician?)

That is the reason why folks refuse to wear masks, why they don’t understand that shopping in Walmart wearing a mask entails a vastly different risk than eating and drinking in a restaurant, where we can’t employ masks.  (Not to mention the closeness of diners to one another.)

Then, of course, there’s the difference between absolute risk and relative risk.  We know that minorities are twice as likely to die from COVID-19 as are White people.  And, men are also twice as likely to die from COVID-19 as women.  Those are relative risks.

If we look at the age one is, we know, the older we are, the more likely we are to die from COVID-19.  (If you are under 20 y, your risk of dying is 0.006%; if you are in your forties, that risk is 0.015%; by the time one is in the 9th decade (80’s), that risk is 10%. ) But,  none  of  these  relate  to  how  easily  one  can  contract  the  disease.

The one clear fact- if we are in an enclosed structure (inside a building- or even a tent where there are not two open sides at least), the odds of contracting COVID-19 if we are not wearing a mask are high.  (The odds of contracting COVID-19 from eating in a restaurant is 2.4X more likely than if we don’t habituate restaurants.) If we are outdoors at the same social distance and wearing a mask, the risks are orders of magnitude lower.

Wear your mask!  Survive until we get inoculated!

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