Some people, perhaps more towards the beginning of our pandemic than now, have said that we wouldn’t have a shutdown for seasonal influenza, and COVID-19 is not much worse. Our best mortality data shows that this argument is unsound: COVID-19 is much worse. But still I wonder if there isn’t something to do the idea of turning the argument around to conclude that we should be doing more about the flu—and the common cold, while we’re at it—than we are.
The flu isn’t nearly as deadly as COVID-19, but it does kill many. It causes significant suffering to a much greater number than it kills, and it is very disruptive to the economy. The kinds of public health measures taken against COVID-19 have apparently been extremely effective against the flu, apparently leading to a seven-fold decrease in flu-like symptoms in Australia around April of this year as compared to last year. Of course, for economic reasons, it would not be prudent to shut down businesses and schools to prevent the flu, especially since economic impact is one of the reasons for fighting the flu. And, in my sample of one, I continue to delight in the fact that since spring break, I haven’t had any flu or cold—five months without coughing is completely new to me, and wonderful!
But some of the measures taken against COVID-19 carry little economic costs, and yet might significantly decrease flu transmission. Specifically: voluntary individual social distancing and masks. Prior to the pandemic, comfortable personal space in the U.S. was said to be at least 1.5 feet for good non-romantic friends, four feet for strangers and three for co-workers and casual acquaintances. We could modify our etiquette to increase all these distances to six in those circumstances where it is not seriously inconvenient to do so. And we could also make it a part of our social etiquette that we wear good quality masks (which we could presumably make in large numbers at relatively low cost if we put more resources into it in the long term) when we are with those who aren’t very close to us, again when this is not seriously inconvenient.
Of course, there would be many circumstances where distancing and masking would be seriously inconvenient, and our etiquette could take those into account, just as it already allows for exceptions to personal space requirements on public transit and on crowded streets. And in cases where facial expressions are important, or when communicating with members of the Deaf community, one would need to take off one’s mask or use a mask with a window.
And there might well be some bonuses:
- covering up a significant portion of the face could result in greater social equality for two reasons: (a) decreased lookism because of covering up of much of the face (one of my teens mentioned acne in this connection!) and (b) decreased barriers to social participation by those with serious social anxiety (for instance, I have noticed that I feel more comfortable in social interactions when covered up)
- potential for avoidance of being the victim of street crime, in that non-accidental violation of one’s personal space would provide an earlier warning of bad intentions (with lots of false positives, of course) and allow earlier evasive and protective action.
It would require research whether such partial measures would have sufficient effectiveness against the flu (and the common cold, which is still pretty unpleasant) to outweigh their inconvenience, at least when any bonuses are added.
Nonetheless, I am kind of thinking of unilaterally implementing some variant of these measures once the pandemic is over. The idea of being on an airplane or in a car with strangers and not wearing a mask—even if flu and common cold are all that one has to worry about—now seems rather weird or even repugnant to me. And I’ve wanted more personal space for a while—I can see myself continuing to step back from people not in my household when having conversations to ensure six feet of separation.
(And of course getting vaccinated for the flu goes without saying. I didn't even bother to write it because it's so obvious until my wife reminded me of how many people don't do it.)
