With so many experts using their pulpits to share their opinions on Covid 19, it is often hard to absorb the amount of information and take effective action based the numerous and sometimes conflicting recommendations. It is often equally challenging deciding how to balance Covid 19 related risks with the other risks we incorporate as part of daily living. Even as a physician, I find it hard to reconcile the competing interests of physical and mental health priorities of my patients while trying to give effective advice to mitigate risk of Covid-19.
Louise Radnofsky’s and Ben Cohen’s WSJ article highlights how environmental engineer Linsey Marr applies her field expertise to modify her physical environment to make it safer for her to continue to workout at her gym. She reviewed her building’s engineering documents and made ventilation calculations to determine how much ventilation was needed to make gym safer. By simply opening doors and windows, her gym was able to improve ventilation to the point where Linsey felt safe attending group exercise classes at her gym. She was able to validate her calculations by using a relatively cheap $100 CO2 monitor. I find her example particularly compelling since she in subjecting herself to the environment she has designed. As Nicholas Nassim Taleb would say she has “skin in the game.” It makes me wonder how many experts in the news are following their own recommendations and if they think about the feasibility of their recommendations prior to making them.
Rather than moralizing transmission, case numbers, and lockdowns, I wish more of the discussion would focus on what actionable things we can do, and how we can measure to validate impact of our actions, to reduce harm as we try to manage Covid 19 related risks as part of our daily lives since it does not appear to going away anytime soon.