The Problem is Nobody Wants to be Brian’s Beta Tester

Hooray! We flattened the curve. Now let’s get on with it and open up America. Or at least let’s start with Georgia. The numbers are on our side. But it’s fairly obvious that most people, nearly all, disagree with Gov. Brian Kemp’s decision to begin opening up Georgia.

President Trump publicly disagreed with Kemp. “I told the governor of Georgia Brian Kemp that I disagree strongly with his decision to open certain facilities which are in violation of the phase one guidelines for the incredible people of Georgia,” the president said in Tuesday’s press conference. Devastating words.

Most Americans aren’t ready to “open up” America yet, according to an NBC News/WSJ poll conducted Sunday. The political mix reflects worries about the economy, but independents and Democrats both agree that moving too quickly is a bigger problem than moving too slowly.

To be honest, I agree with that sentiment. We can fix economic damage and put people back to work. It will be expensive, but it can be done, eventually. No amount of money, or time, will bring the dead back to life. If any of us could roll back the calendar to January 30, and do what we’ve done since the middle of March six weeks earlier, we may have saved ten, twenty thousand lives. Who wouldn’t do that?

The economic facts are chilling. Up to a million Georgians may be filing for unemployment. Thousands of small businesses are at risk, despite programs like the Payroll Protection Program, with many of its coffers hogged up by larger businesses with solid banking connections, leaving the gig workers in the cold.

Hospitals, bereft of their income streams from surgeries and other procedures cancelled to make room for COVID-19 patients, are close to insolvency. Some general practitioners, pediatricians, and other specialists may be driven to bankruptcy, or have to exit private practice. This harms our healthcare system.

Going on like this for months is clearly impossible.

But nobody wants to be first to try not going on like this.

America went from “don’t worry,” to “foot bumps” to “six feet please” in just weeks. Now that we’re here, and the curve has been flattened, we’re comfortable here not getting COVID-19.

Looking at Georgia in particular, the state is past the “peak” for resource usage, and likely past the peak for mortality. We’re on the downward side of the curve, with an R0 (“R-Naught”) viral spread value of under 1.0. That means the virus is not spreading, it’s shrinking its footprint. So why not open up and deal with it? We have the resources now.

A simple reason: ask your loved ones if they’re ok risking it. “But I don’t want to get the disease!” will be the response. (Go ahead, ask, right now, and tell me if that’s not the answer.) Nobody wants to be the test case. Nobody wants to get COVID-19 just to open the economy, even if there’s plenty of hospital rooms and ICU beds and ventilators.

Of course not. Who wants to be sick? Nobody. And that’s exactly how many people want to be beta testers for Brian Kemp’s opening plan. Nobody is going to go to a nail salon and sit across from someone when you’ve been told to keep six feet away. Nobody is going to go bowling and touch a bowling ball. Nobody is going to the movies.

Okay, not “nobody” but not enough people to make it worthwhile to employ a person to run the theater, clean up, sell tickets, and make popcorn. Because all those activities will require massive cleaning and sanitizing efforts, personal protective equipment for the employees, and all kinds of rules to keep everyone safe. It’s not economical to do it.

Maybe a few hairdressers will begin to take clients, one at a time, masked, gloved, and armed with a touchless infrared thermometer. But most people are going to wait until some other poor schmuck goes out first.

It’s not really a failure of leadership for Gov. Kemp here. It’s a failure of message, and a failure of Kemp and his medical advisors to understand that the premise has changed. What was originally “flatten the curve” and get back to work has become, “you go first.”

President Trump, a student of human moves for 50 years, can smell the public’s fear. He threw Kemp right under the bus, because he knows nobody wants to willingly and knowingly be a beta tester with their own health. Normally beta testers are recruited by wrapping the untested product in a “new feature” release.

These uninformed brave souls go out and spend their own money to use something the informed clearly see as not ready for prime time (like Windows Vista). Trump knows this schtick, because it’s the same schtick he’s used to hawk vitamins, real estate investing classes, steaks, vodka, and all kinds of Trump-branded schemes.

Trump knows how to game this, and Kemp does not. So Kemp is bravely marching himself off a cliff with nobody following, while Trump gets to tweet “LIBERATE VIRGINIA!” while savagely failing to support Kemp, who has indeed met all the requirements for Phase 1 “Opening America.”

The problem here isn’t one of clinical fact, or statistical trends. It’s a problem of perception. Sooner or later someone is going to have to be a beta tester, but nobody wants to be the hero (or very few, and not enough for the masses to follow).

Put in TV medical terms: Kemp is like having Dr. House tell you “it sucks to be you, but I can cure you–probably,” and Trump is Dr. Welby handing you sugar pills and instructions to call him in the morning. The sugar pills don’t do a thing for you, but Dr. Welby gets a great night’s sleep.

Eventually, we will all need to go back to work, and the sooner the better. But not this week, and not next week, regardless of how right Gov. Kemp is. Nobody wants to be one of Brian Kemp’s beta testers. They just say “let someone else do it.”