We're drowning in a sea of numbers. Some of them are getting fancier labels - statistics, model predictions, flattening curves, trends, extrapolations - lots of names, little in-depth analysis. You can hardly see the announcers on TV for all the facts and figures.
Numbers aren't much use without context. As Mark Twain famously once said: "There are three kinds of lies - lies, damned lies and statistics." It's not all as bad as that, but it's certainly worth sitting down quietly and taking cognisance of the origins and methods used to arrive at the numbers.
Is the jump in Covid-19 cases in the Western Cape simply due to a similar increase in the relative number of tests being performed, or is the rate of infection going up, or is it the hotspot focus pre-selection?
We get into such angst about what other countries are doing, but comparisons introduce even more variables, making it nigh impossible to make enduring logical deductions or decide whether their strategy is better than ours. Our vast inequality also makes appropriate universal strategy very difficult to determine.
It's not only the pandemic that's spewing out crazy numbers in real time. Stock market indices around the world are all over the place - but mainly they've bounced back from the initial declines attributed to the pandemic.
Here, I'm afraid, the indices seem to be moving positively in the opposite direction to the realities on the ground. The optimism is primarily driven by the promise of the opening up of economies once the pandemic is over (yeah, right).
International crises seem to matter less than they used to - like record increases in unemployment in the US, riots in the streets (that's going to be huge, worldwide), or the US-China trade and other wars, Hong Kong ... there's a long list of worries.
The stock market solution offered, as always, is to throw money at the markets, not at the problems, mind you. "Don't fight the Fed!" the old Wall Street adage goes, meaning that we can't go against the flood of money coming into the system from the Federal Reserve in the US.
I beg to differ. If we don't address the inequality that's being entrenched by pouring money into the top of the wealth pyramid, instead of the bottom where it's desperately needed, we will face a bottom-up collapse of the world economy.
If we don't address the inequality that's being entrenched by pouring money into the top of the wealth pyramid, instead of the bottom where it's desperately needed, we will face a bottom-up collapse of the world economy
Let's start off by thinking about whether things were that great in the real economy before Covid-19. They were not. Besides, we can only hope to get back to what is now being referred to as the "90% economy". We've become conditioned to believe that 90% is a great outcome for anything. If you got home from school with a 90% mark for any of your subjects, let alone in aggregate, you're in for some big holiday treats.
In economies, however, it's the 10% that counts. Getting back to only 90% means 10% didn't make it. Ninety percent saved means 10% lost, that's the truth of it. So what shall we do? Adapt or die, that's what.
Embrace the new normal, redefine yourself, reskill yourself to make a space where you can earn a living. Start doing that now; there are only so many places. Is working from home a real possibility? It better be. Look for the new rules of play, join the new ecosystem.
A vaccine will eventually emerge (we're a clever bunch, we humans, when our very survival depends on it enough to create common purpose). But there'll be other pandemics, not necessarily medical - nationalism, racism, poverty, inequality, gender-based violence … you know the list - and the new normal will keep changing.
Take time to understand the numbers. Try to figure out how the extrapolations will affect YOU, YOUR wellbeing and YOUR investment decisions and career choices.
I'm afraid there's going to be less and less looking after each other, and more and more survival of the best prepared - that's just how it is in a numbers game. We could actually emerge into a better world - play your part in that, and you won't just be a statistic.
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