Accepting the Pandemic

I have observed that "acceptance is the answer to ALL my problems." This is different than acquiescence. Acceptance is a core component of mental health, as "sanity is accepting reality at ANY cost." The current responses to the COVID-19 pandemic have revealed a remarkable lack of acceptance and, thus, sanity.

The journey to acceptance are outlined by the five stages of grief and can serve as a good indicator for where we seem to be. As a reminder, the five stages are: denial, anger, negotiating, depression and acceptance. Further, as another reminder, these stages are not directly linear, but more of moving back and forth towards acceptance.

When the pictures showed up of China rapidly building massive hospitals, my journey of acceptance began. I don't trust the Chinese words, but I do trust their actions. Their systemic response started with denial. Quickly their government responded vigorously as they sensed the anger stage. No negotiation in their system. Their rapidly forced journey to acceptance has been remarkably effective.

In our system, the early journey seems similar to China - at some point of infection, the larger population moves to anger. The result seems to be driving some long overdue bipartisanship. Politicians are clear that anger is simmering and the blame process is escalating. If we are fortunate, then perhaps rapid change can occur in our fragile economy. But, we are also clearly in a negotiating stage where monetary and fiscal policies are being tried. The stock market seems to be picking up on these in a back and forth pricing mechanism.

If policies are ineffective, which may occur given our supply chains and delayed response, then we would enter the next stage - depression and would likely see massive government intervention in the provision of basic supplies. This would likely be accompanied by a stock market complete capitulation that is far off from today's prices. (For a view of what this stage would look like, the oil patch provides a much better picture.)