Potemkin Planet
A fake front will not protect us from imaginary fears
Exaggerated fears of coronavirus are based on a perception, but not the reality, of risk.
Our social response is saturated with these fears and is out of step with today’s situation.
We need to remove restrictions on personal contact in proportion to the real risk.
Village People
Here in Vancouver, Canada, where I live, we are fully engaged (as are many others on this planet) in the newest innovation in human social behavior: the Reverse Potemkin.
The original Potemkin village dates from Czarist times, when the Russian Empress toured Crimea and was greeted with spanking clean dwellings and robust inhabitants at every stop, none of which or whom were authentic.
This deception was used by local Governor Grigory Potemkin to cover up the potential damage from knowledge of the much less attractive on-the-ground situation.
Whether myth or fact, everything was dressed up for success, the locals were in on the gag, and the only fool was Catherine the Great.
Today, with the Reverse Potemkin, everyone is dressed for distress, it’s not a laughing matter, and we are unwittingly fooling only ourselves.
All of us are standing six feet apart, changing our behaviors, deforming our institutions, and staring crossly at each other from behind unnecessary masks, in places where there is probably no coronavirus to be spread.
That is especially true here in British Columbia, where with less than a dozen new cases each day in a province of over 5 million people, the only virus is in the lungs of a few unfortunates. The rest of the terrain is bone dry.
We would know this is also true for vast expanses of the US, Europe, and many Asian countries (but not as yet in other places like Russia, Brazil, and the Indian subcontinent), if only we could see the virus with our own eyes.
Alas, we cannot, but that does not stop us from very clearly visualizing the threat in our mind’s eye.
And that is the essential social problem of our time: exaggerated fears based on a perception, but not the reality, of risk.
Dental Dangers
To give a very specific example of how this works, I lived one version of the Reverse Potemkin today in a visit to my local dentist.
I had the misfortune of losing a crown on my tooth a month ago, in the heat of the pandemic crisis, and my dentist was kind enough then to immediately attend to the emergency.
He greeted me at his office entryway in full pandemic regalia: gown, gloves, visor, and a high-end full-face air filtered mask, what looked to me like a modern update to the WWI-era mustard gas version.
I washed my hands and we initially stood apart, but, except for the new safety-first dress code, the dental procedures to reset the crown were carried out as usual. It was a mostly normal visit.
Now fast forward to today, as it was time for my return to his office to replace the defective crown with a permanent fix.
Just prior to my visit, I received two emails, one as a checklist for Covid-like symptoms and another as a liability waiver, in case things went wrong down the line. These web forms required multiple signatures and I am pretty sure that the wrong answer would have cancelled my visit.
This morning, moments before arrival, I also received a text asking me to stay outside the office, maintaining social distancing, until it was “safe to enter”. The required text back from me, “Arrived”, was followed by an all’s-clear within minutes.
As I approached, I saw that the office entryway had been transformed since my visit a month ago.
Multiple notices and behavioral rules were pasted on the front door: “STOP, Read Before Entering Clinic”, “Occupancy limit: 25 people”, “Help stop the spread of Covid”, “If you have answered YES to any of the above questions, DO NOT ENTER THE FACILITY”.
Inside, no one was allowed in the waiting room and the receptionists were screened by Plexiglas panes.
A large air filter machine labelled “Surgically Clean Air” was sited in a pride-of-place location, right in the middle of the entryway (presumably to both reassure patients and highlight the new level of diligent care).
I had a choice of two (mandatory) hand sanitizers to wash my hands and was then ushered, at a distance, to the examination area.
I met my dentist and his colleague there and, to my surprise, he had dropped both the visor and high-end face mask for the initial consultation. The visor did come back later, as a safety measure against potential virus-laden spray, and was also used by the other attending staff. The WWI relic was nowhere to be seen and was possibly retired to its former battleground.
As before, the dental procedures carried on as usual. It was an efficient, professional, friendly, and (thankfully) pain-free visit, and for all that I am very thankful.
I have a great dentist — and a smart one too, who told me that there have been no cases of coronavirus originating in dental offices from Wuhan onward.
That naturally leads one to wonder at the mandated industry and government protections put in place to ward off the dreaded contagion. Are they really needed?
Where is Waldo?
The only thing missing from this dental visit, like a surprise party without the birthday boy, was the coronavirus.
It was seemingly nowhere to be found and yet its pervasive spirit saturated the entire office and all of its exacting procedures.
I believe that the virus was not only not in the dental office today, but it was also highly unlikely to be in any neighboring offices, adjacent buildings, a ten or one hundred square block radius around the office, or in the lungs of any of the people at large in those spaces.
After all, the province of BC has averaged only 10 new cases per day for the past month, only 13 people are in hospital (with 4 of those in critical care), and there have been only 2 deaths in June, all in a province of over 5 million inhabitants.
That two person death toll, the outcome we all fear from Covid-19, compares to 28 typical June motor vehicle deaths in the province, 45 typical June suicides, and 110 monthly average drug overdoses so far in 2020. There are also approximately 3,200 people who die every month in BC.
In other words, the pandemic in this province right now is absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. In fact, it could be described as an extremely low risk situation, almost worth ignoring.
So, if the virus is so rare, or maybe even non-existent in almost all locations, why are we performing this pantomime of risk avoidance?
Could it be that we under-reacted to the viral threat in early 2020 when it was far off in China, over-reacted in mid-March with the rest of the world, when we went into lockdown, and now are reluctant to let go of our fears when the air has literally cleared?
This dental visit is a small example of the Reverse Potemkin and really did not inconvenience me at all. However, the added costs and staff discomfort (from wearing masks all day) are quite tangible, as is the fact that the office is running at half capacity. New normal dentistry is not necessarily sensible dentistry.
The bigger issue is that most, if not all, of these new procedures are unnecessary, and add up to a mighty cumulative blow to our livelihoods, our time, and our quality of life.
They are happening in almost every dental office in the world, at every doctor’s office, at every health facility, in every office building, at every working location, in every retail store, in every entertainment complex, at every public venue, and at virtually every point outside our homes where we meet other people.
There is also no sign whatsoever that the restrictions will be moderated or repealed at any time soon. Many of them are likely permanent.
Potemkin would be so proud.
The Answer
So, what should be done?
The answer is not complicated, but it is controversial and probably unpopular.
Given the negligible risk, orders of magnitudes below other lethal threats in BC, we should remove all barriers to social interaction and resume our normal lives.
That might not be the full answer now for other places, but it will be the ultimate approach to take as their pandemics naturally level out. And it will also be true even if our cases of Covid rise somewhat, since we are such a long way from even a modest risk level here in BC.
There is such a thing as taking too little risk and it is apparent that the social, civic, economic, and fiscal costs of this pandemic have vastly exceeded the actual limited health risks.
Whether people can overcome their fears is another matter, as well as the willingness of our political leaders to let go of their controls and reassume their limited role in a free society again.
A good first step would be to remove all public health orders on social interactions, and thereby allow private and public organizations to find the right balance between contagion fears and a sensible approach to their activities. Remove the prohibitions and let the market work.
We have had months now to educate ourselves about the virus and only the citizenry at large can determine the extent to which we resume normality.
Who knows, maybe if a few brave souls come together and do not fall into contagion, we can all muster the courage to demand safety, convenience, practical measures, and common sense, all at the same time, Potemkin be damned.
