A Systemic Fuckup
By: Marjan Krebelj
Tags: Covid 19 Crisis, Security, Politics, Christmas, Safety

How Europe learned nothing during summer 2020

Traffic jam this morning, via Avtokampi.si

This is today’s image from our highways. The same sights we’ve been watching the entire summer of 2020 and we’ve been paying the price in death toll and healthcare exhaustion the entire autumn. It is obvious we either learned nothing or we merely continue to delude ourselves about the reality of current situation. As of this week our country (Slovenia) lifted many of the restrictions and people are not only taking advantage, they are hoarding the shopping malls and public places. WTF is wrong?

Let me be clear; it is a failure of personal responsibility, empathy and solidarity. No doubt about it. But at the same time it is a systemic failure just as well. Let me elaborate how and why by examining examples where systemic safety is well handled.

The Worst (Realistic) Expectation

Airlines don’t count on their passengers to be good guys who won’t carry weapons or bombs onto the aircraft. Of course, most of us are, and most flights are completely harmless, but they don’t count on it, do they?

What airlines do instead is they consider the worst situation they can realistically expect and build the whole system around it.

Photo by Connor Danylenko from Pexels

It is not that of a stretch to expect a terrorist passenger on at least some of the flights. The only way to block these people from harming everyone else is to impose a tolerable level of routine check-ups on all of the passengers plus some regular training of the security and crew so that potential terrorists and psychopaths can be handled with efficiency.

But above all; you don’t just trust people not to try blowing up the airplane. This is not a cynical position nor is it grim, it is just a necessary stand point from which you can organise a safe flying service. You don’t skip checking out John’s bags just because John is a good guy and you know him from high school. All that might be true, but John’s bags are going under x-ray just as anybody else’s. And John better understand that or else he better walk his way out.

The Worst (Realistic) Behaviour

We are just a bunch of sophisticated monkeys. Period. If there is a chance to cheat and we think we can get away with it, we’ll do it. If pressed against the wall, we’ll rebel and try to sneak our way out.

Every taxation system of this world is built around this predisposition. I don’t think that any state is naive enough to believe that its citizens won’t try to find loop-holes and hide at least some of their property from tax policy. Even countries with the best karma still have systemic checks in place to make tax evasion extremely difficult and usually not worth while.

Photo by Oleg Magni from Pexels

This might actually be a bit cynical, I agree. It might even be a bit grim, but it keeps the system running and most countries have become experts in tracking any tax offenders down.

It is not just about taxes, any kind of offence (even daily traffic ones) will make you owe the state some money and there is a huge machinery in place which will make you pay. You can run, but you can’t hide. You will pay.

The Worst (Realistic) Oblivion

Imagine yourself being infected with some dangerous virus. It could be the novel Coronavirus, perhaps HIV or any other. Are you obligated to tell your dentist about it? The answer is: technically no. While it is certainly a noble thing to do, there is no way to hold you accountable against it, simply because of the fact that you could just as well be infected without knowing about it.

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels

It is the dentist’s obligation to treat every one of his patients as if infected and take proper (realistic) measures against it. A dentist too, just as airlines, builds his or her safety around the worst realistic expectation. The same goes for operation rooms and other medical procedures.

Back to Reopening

So with all this experience we have with designing safety measures, how did we fuck up with Covid-19 so damn much?

The whole EU went for a reopening during the summer of 2020 without any guarantee of the virus being eliminated, without having a cure or a vaccine. We just trusted every average Joe to be a nice guy to respect social distancing, wear a mask and wash his hands.

Many people acted responsibly, but just as you don’t need every passenger carrying a bomb to take the whole flight zu grund, you also don’t need that many virus deniers to crash the health system either.

Why is the system, which is so effective when it comes to collecting taxes, so ineffective when it comes to viruses? Is it just plain stupidity? Or are they (politicians) blinded by something else? Are they so busy playing their political games of power and corruption that they see the whole situation in the category of means instead of an end in it self? Are we — meaning the public and the public heath system — just a necessary evil to be dealt with?

I don’t know. I don’t have answers to this questions. I’m just angry and sad. I was watching the whole summer thousands of cars from Germany, Poland, Czech Republic, Austria, Slovakia and our own towns migrating through my town to Croatia’s beaches and nightclubs. It was clear what would and did follow. Central European countries are now the worst in the world when it comes to controlling the virus and Slovenia is taking the lead.

It is therefore so much more disappointing that our government re-opened stores and lifted several other restrictions right before Christmas. And people found every possible loophole to take advantage of this situation. They are crowding the streets, shopping malls and highways. No matter how much I bitch about individual people, this is a systemic thing.

Sometimes I just don’t think this species is worth surviving.