Muddling Through Does Not Work for Pandemics: COVID-19 Letter Published in The Financial Times

In 1959, Charles Lindblom wrote The Science of “Muddling Through”, advocating an incremental approach to public policy and management. “Muddling through” does not work for pandemics. The science of pandemics is dominated by epidemiology, not behavioral science. The delay between policy decisions (or indecisions) and the resultant high UK death rate needs tracing back from …

Charley Says Social Distancing

Charley was a character in UK Public Information Films in the 1970s. Here he is in ‘Charley Says Social Distancing’ “Treat everyone else as if they’re about to catch fire and you’re a lit match.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YmN0iV3f0I Charley: Miaoweeaawwwoa [I can’t believe I’m writing this] Narrator: This is you. You’re a match. And these are your …

I am concerned about the UK Government’s approach to social distancing

The real problem with Coronavirus Covid-19 is that when the health service becomes overloaded, the death rate goes up significantly. So, it is imperative that we keep the number of cases at any one time below or as near as possible to NHS capacity. The Government’s model relies on shifting the peak. I am not …

Social Distancing using Play-Doh and Matches

There has been much talk about using social distancing as a response to the Coronavirus outbreak. Here’s a video of how social distancing can be used: Close Contact, where the population is infected very rapidly. This is not A Good Thing – the national health service is overwhelmed, and the death rate goes up as …

Coronavirus: The First Big Test of Behavioral Science

The United Kingdom is at a crossroads, an ideological battle between natural science and behavioral science. Let’s hope for all our sakes we get this one right. Boris Johnson, the UK Prime Minister, is facing a dilemma. When do we go from the so-called containment phase for controlling Covid-19 Coronavirus, to the delay phase. In …

Contagion: How to Model It and What R-nought (R0) Actually Means

The 2011 film Contagion, starring the spectacularly ill-fated Gwyneth Paltrow, is a dramatization of a viral pandemic starting in pretty analagous circumstances to the current Wuhan Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) outbreak. It’s a good film, and is a great introduction to the work of Centers for Disease Control (CDCs) that monitor the spread – the epidemiology – …