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The urgency instinct explains the drastic Omicron responses, but is it necessary?
Hans Rosling’s Factfulness is as relevant as ever for understanding the current panic
As coincidence would have it, I am currently reading this book called Factfulness: Ten reasons why we are wrong about the world, by Hans Rosling. This book came out in 2018 but it is funny how relevant it seems nowadays.
The author argues with a well-founded optimism about how the world is doing better than we think. Also, ironic how he talks about pandemic and vaccination responses which dates from a pre-COVID era.
I will definitely write a more comprehensive article on it, for now I wanted to focus on this chapter called the urgency instinct. I read this chapter this morning and almost gave me goose bumps as to how applicable it is to the current situation.
For some context, the author relates a particular personal story which took place when an unidentified disease took over a part of Mozambique.
A particular sentence struck me:
‘When we are afraid and under time pressure and thinking of worst-case scenarios, we tend to make really stupid decisions.’ Hans Rosling
