We have not yet been able to get ahead of a wave in the corona epidemic. There are a variety of psychological causes behind this as well.
[Download : the psychology of pandemics pdf]
Does anyone remember? Only a few months ago, Andreas Gassen, the panel doctor's chairman, called for a "Freedom Day," the elimination of all protective measures, on October 30, 2021 - as if we were still shackled and not already in the fourth wave of the epidemic.
At the same time as the World Health Organization reaffirmed the pandemic "emergency of worldwide concern," then-Acting Health Minister Jens Spahn saw the end of the "epidemic crisis of national concern." And, only a few weeks ago, Marco Buschmann, the current Minister of Justice, declared confidently that all corona measures would expire in March 2022.
Of course not, and the orthopaedist Gassen's "Freedom Day" will remain a private fantasy for the foreseeable future. Hundreds of similar errors occurred throughout the epidemic. Prime Ministers who were convinced that the virus will not infect their country. Governments have vowed to avoid another lockdown.
Why is this the case? Why are there so many egregious errors that aren't the result of a lack of information? Why don't we learn from our errors?
There are other systemic-structural reasons for Germany's lacklustre performance in combatting the corona epidemic, which I will not discuss here (keywords: strategy and communication deficits, democratic inertia, federalism, diffusion of responsibility, inadequate digitization). It should also not be about the often difficult issue of correctly interpreting scientific information.
Rather, several fundamental cognitive-psychological processes are examined in this paper. Because there are four repeating errors whose insidious combination consistently outmanoeuvres us, hampers clear thinking, and finally leads to ineffective pandemic response. Let's have a look at them.
Normalcy bias
When I first heard about a "new virus" in China two years ago, I was taken aback. Then came the first local epidemic in Bavaria in February, followed by reports of isolated cases in the United States, France, and Italy. The infection was clearly spreading over the world. I was delighted by the RKI, which categorised the danger for Germany as low because to the lack of direct flights from Wuhan, but also predicted a high number of cases.
And what did I do after that? There is nothing. Neither stocks nor gold have been purchased, nor has a supply of masks or food been stored. Are you considering other possible outcomes of your actions? none.
This is referred to by psychologists as the normality bias. We may still perceive an issue, but we do not or do not respond quickly. It's often too late by then. Risk stays weirdly distant, both mentally and emotionally; it remains a remote, abstract interruption outside of the routines, habits, and certainties of our everyday living environment.
We want the world to go on as it is. Because what isn't supposed to be can't be. Because people did not evacuate Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana, sinking was as unthinkable for the Titanic's crew as a meltdown was for the engineers at Fukushima. Because we can't think of it any other way.
This is reinforced by the herd impulse. In my actions, I subconsciously orient myself to people in my surroundings. Psychologists have also discovered that if I am alone in a room and odd smoke appears out of nowhere, I prefer to leave. When there are other individuals in the room, this willingness lessens. I search for cues from others; if none are found, I don't do anything. Then nothing happened.
Optimism Bias
The normality bias is comparable to the optimism bias. In summary, whereas the normalcy bias leads us to assume that nothing will happen to us, the optimism bias leads us to believe that nothing will happen to us. This has also been demonstrated by psychologists in empirical research.
Even if we feel that crime is on the rise, that German autobahns are hazardous, or that a virus threatens us, many individuals believe that they are not directly harmed.
The actions of Saxony-Anhalt Prime Minister Reiner Haseloff in the Prime Ministers' Conference on January 7, 2022, provides a new example of the clouding impact of a combination of normality bias and optimism bias.
He objected to the tightening of the access criteria for gastronomy to 2G+. The reason for this is because omikron is not widely available in Saxony-Anhalt. The "new normal" is in Saxony-Anhalt Delta, and the optimistic distortion appears to lead to the assumption that Omicron is avoiding Saxony-Anhalt. That is not the case, as we all know.
Dr. Haseloff, by the way, has a degree in physics and worked on the creation of measuring instruments for environmental management during his dissertation. Academic education does not shield students from normalcy and optimism distortions. When he states that "every country has its own regulations" and that "placing a wrench on the wrong nut size" is pointless, his scientific knowledge is ignored. You must still convey the rules to the corona virus. And the fact that the wrenches are frequently too tiny is a result of the optimistic distortion. This brings us to the following cognitive mistake.
Exponential myopia
On the same day that Prime Minister Haseloff recounted the wrenching account as a justification for his country's rejection of tightening measures, he revealed 50 verified omicron instances. But it was just five a week before that, on New Year's Eve 2021. And already 278 a week later, on January 14, 2022. This is known as exponential growth.
And that is the same process that overwhelmed Saxony's Prime Minister Kretschmer in October 2020, when he warned of panic but also stated that no new restrictions were required. Even then, the exponential expansion had begun, and eight weeks later, in the face of excess mortality and overburdened intensive care units, he pulled the ripcord: harsh lockdown.
By the way, barely three weeks after Dr. Haseloff said that the omicron form did not play a role in his nation, its percentage of all Covid infections in Saxony-Anhalt was 97 percent on February 1st.
All of this leads to a repeating mistake in thinking that affects practically everyone (apparently even physicists) and has been called "exponential myopia" by British economist and writer Tim Harford. The grain of wheat legend is a famous example of an exponential function that may be summarised as follows: How many grains of wheat are on the 64th field if we set a grain of wheat on the first square of a chessboard and then double it each each square (two grains on the second square, four grains on the third, etc.)? We may not believe that, but it is 2 64-1 or 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 grains of wheat (18.45 trillion). That is almost 730 billion tonnes of wheat, or a thousand times the global wheat crop.
We have no intuition in this regard. We are really short-sighted.
If we were working with a virus rather than wheat grains, we would refer to an exponential function with a reproduction rate of R 0 =2. (because the wheat grains double each time). According to British research, the omicron form has a R value of about 4. The Omicron variety then spread the whole state of Saxony-Anhalt in less than seven weeks, unchecked. Unless we use the huge wrench to keep it in check.
With aspects like a viral infection developing at an exponential rate, pointing out that "we only have a few dozen cases" doesn't help. This easily adds up to millions. However, since we lack a feeling of exponentiality, this myopia reinforces our normalcy and optimism biases. If we then act, the following mistake is frequently the consequence.
Prevention Paradox
In the automobile, I wear my seat belt so that I don't fly out the window in the case of an accident. I don't balance on the cliff for fear of falling. Because so many people do it, almost no one falls through a glass window or dies from a cliff fall. Few, on the other hand, would conclude that cliffs are safe.
Many people have varying reactions to vaccines or Covid preventative measures. Widespread vaccines reduce the prevalence of a disease; it tends to fade from consciousness. Was the sickness truly so severe? Covid protective measures have reduced the virus's transmission; worst-case scenarios have not occurred. Wasn't all of it overblown, and Corona wasn't worse than the flu?
Prevention results in nothing happening, i.e. everything remains substantially same. School closures or limits in gastronomy, unlike wearing a seat belt, are not common, ordinary, or automatic behaviour. (Incidentally, millions of near-hysterical seat belt refusers in 1976 demonstrated that this wasn't always the case with the seat belt.)
We're taking an unusual step to keep the larger picture in mind. The emotional cost of not acting is enormous. We criticise the measure and don't comprehend why nothing happened because preventative action was done.
Unfortunately, the preventative paradox and exponential short-sightedness are inextricably linked, resulting in a double underestimation: on the one hand, we vastly underestimate the potential future risk, and on the other, we vastly underestimate the impact of our preventive actions.
As a result, distortions of normalcy and optimism worsen. Our psychological setup deceives us, and we continue to make the same mistakes, failing to catch the wave. We repeatedly act too late, inadequately, or not at all. Because the virus, foolishly, does not respect the regulations of the state chancellery.
A pandemic causes intricate, sometimes perplexing conflicts of values and decision-making scenarios. That is a significant load in in of itself, and you do not want to be in the shoes of a female politician. However, we may anticipate a bias toward science, an interchange of reasons and counter-arguments, and, finally, logical conclusions.
However, this is only achievable if we become aware of our own cognitive flaws and distortions and attempt to critically remove ourselves from them. Only then will we be able to learn. Posts like "every country has its own regulations" and wrenches that don't fit on nuts, on the other hand, leave people exhausted at best and furious at worst.
The author Georg Vielmetter, is a philosopher and sociologist.