Please visit our home site at www.TRILOBOATS.com.

Anke and I live aboard WAYWARD, and wrote about it's design and construction at ABargeInTheMaking.blogspot.com.

Access to the net comes and goes, so I'll be writing in fits and spurts.Please feel free to browse the archives, leave comments where you will and write... I'll respond as I can.

Fair winds!

Dave and Anke
triloboats swirly gmail daughter com

Monday, March 16, 2020

COVID-19: Circle the Wagons

Important, but is it happening in time?
Treatment capacity lines seem optimistic, to me...
assumes healthcare is exceeded vs overwhelmed.

James gave the huffle of a snail in danger,
And nobody heard him at all.

-- A. A. Milne


COVID-19: Circling the Wagons

For those of you who don't know it, I've been huffling since the run up to Y2K about TEOTWAWKI - The End Of The World As We Know It.

Now I believe we're watching it unfold.

The basic factors are these
  • A fragile, Global Industrial Economy (GIE)... our tightly coupled, deeply indebted Complex Adaptive System (CAS).
  • A vast, overshot, human population which depends on a functional GIE for its livelihood.
  • Exponential spread of COVID-19 pandemic which will almost certainly overwhelm the healthcare system.
  • Failed containment and failing mitigation measures.
  • Exponential growth of associated problems.

Exponential growth of anything catches humans by surprise in almost every case. Windows of opportunity for meaningful action / preparation are snapping closed at a rate that's difficult for human beings to grasp intuitively.

NOTE: See here (~4 min vid... visceral impact of exponential growth) and here (~9min vid... exponential spread of COVID-19 vs flattening) to get a taste of the challenge.

David Korowicz lays out the general issues in his paper Trade-off (77 pages for the very interested) and specifically, pandemic based analysis in Catastrophic Shocks in Complex Socio-Economic Systems: A Pandemic Perspective (10 pages for the interested). Both are challenging reading, but, I believe, provide a foundation for viewing current events.

CAS's - such as the human body - have a range of stability. Within that range, they can be astoundingly resilient. But if events drive them beyond that range, a tipping point is reached and the whole system settles into a new equilibrium.

In the human body, an infection can lead to the loss of a critical function (breathing, say), and in a rapid cascade it collapses (and without rapid, correct intervention, dies). In a just-in-time economy, supply-chain interruptions block down-chain production and can rapidly paralyze the economy. In finance, disturbing the mountain of debt can bring currencies and institutions crashing down.

All of these are underway. [Or, for a less detailed and challenging glimpse of the problem, try this article.]

This is my long-winded way of saying that this is both serious and moving faster than we imagine.


 My Urgent Advice...

>>>  Get together with those you most love RIGHT NOW. Stay together for the duration.

>>>  Get together provisions RIGHT NOW (food, water, essential medicines, cooking/heating fuel) for a minimum of two weeks (CDC advice). Longer is better.

>>>  Make an isolation / infected plan and put it into action RIGHT NOW.

>>>  Don't panic, but GET MOVING.


Whether I'm right or wrong about larger consequences... even if the GIE manages to function beyond the crisis... even if your area has no known cases...  whether you are riding this out or hunkering down for trouble...

Containment and mitigation measures are shutting down travel and contact for unspecified periods. If flattening the curve is successful (our best chance), lockdowns will be in place for months, not weeks.

I say again, windows of opportunity are snapping closed.

Fair winds, health and happiness to all of us,

Dave and Anke




P.S. Here's some good advice from a guy who's been there.

8 comments:

  1. Darn good advice. I cut my travels in Florida a month short this year. Figured I'd better drive home to NH while it was still possible. People thought I was nuts to do that, but now . . . not so much. Currently my wife and I are in our third day of a two week self-imposed quarantine. We did not even stop to pick up groceries or other supplies. We will be fine with our basic food storage.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Sixbears,

      I'm SO glad to hear that you and your wife are home and stocked up. You're sailors who see which way the wind is blowing. 8)

      Dave Z

      Delete
  2. This is all planned from TPTSNB, and the nonexistent "virus" is a perfect alibi to start what we are witnessing today,viruses and bacteria never harmed anyone, the whole "germ theory" is a massive profitable fraud who started with the two idiots Pasteur and Koch, look up virologist dr Stefan Lanka, the one thing to avoid att all costs is the coming miracle vaccine, it beats me that so few people still beleive that heavy metal and other toxins injected in to the body somehow is beneficial, the only people I know who are "sick" are the ones that eat junk food, eat pills and get their regular or occational shots, its them that should be away from people for about three weeks.

    Exchange fear with knowledge and insight for peace of mind.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Plentymoonshine,

      I gave you a considered reply in comments at the following link. Please read it, and if you'd like further discussion, contact me by email (triloboats swirl gmail dot com).

      https://triloboats.blogspot.com/2020/02/a-coronoviral-stitch-in-time.html

      While I appreciate you sharing your opinion and right to express it, your position runs counter to mine. I respectfully request that, having said your piece, you leave it at that. Plenty other forums for that discussion.

      Thanks,

      Dave Z

      Delete
  3. So much conflicting intel as of 3.18.20..... some pooh-poohing its severity, the cover-up-the-monetary collapsers, the bio-weaponers, the psy-oppers, etc..

    From the start the most significant threat is from ham handed governments kneejerk reactions: appropriate to a point but beyond that another convenient excuse for a power grab.

    Already central banks blaming the toppling markets and liquidity shortages on CV19. DOrlov got it right with the first stage on collapse being financial and here we go!!!! Good times....

    Hey Dave!!!!>>>> "When in danger, or in doubt, hoist the sails and"..... well, you know......

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Roberto,

      Yeah. Fascinating times. The 'Pandemic Perspective' paper I linked above is a playbook of sorts for economic breakdown... at least it gives clues for where to look to see if London Bridge is Falling Down (supply-chain disruptions, runs on the banks, spreading economic 'contagion' aka cascading failures). All these appear to be starting, this early in the pandemic.

      COVID is giving the table a good shake under the house of cards. Ironically, it may not be the virus itself, but the host's immune system over-reaction which does the damage.

      Either way, now's the time to be ready for the restrictions which are definitely being considered and enacted.

      And yeah. I know. 8)

      Dave Z

      Delete
  4. Reading this on 29th. Seems surreal. We slipped our mooring in the dark hours before lockdown. And that's NZ. You country is going batshit crazy. Good luck.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Black Panther,

      NZ does seem to be one of the best spots on planet earth... isolation and considerable self-reliance plus science-led responses!

      Best of luck to you from the Belfry.

      Dave Z

      Delete