Pandemic Airlines
“Damn it, we’re going to crash… This can’t be happening!”
Imagine the whole world is traveling in a commercial airline flight. And the four engines propelling the plane forward represent the economies of the US, Europe, China, and the rest of the world. We are cruising at 30,000 ft.
There is a virus spreading in our plane’s cabin. It’s killing people. Unfortunately, there’s only one doctor on our plane. We need to slow the spread of the virus so that the doctor can manage to care for everyone on board who becomes ill. The only way to do this is to stop the circulation of the cabin’s air, which means stalling the plane’s engines. If we don’t, the virus will continue circulating in the air, infecting more people, and it will likely kill them — we only have one doctor, after all. With only one choice, we cut power to the engines.
A flight attendant announces over the speaker system “In order to slow the spread of the virus, please practice social distancing and stay in your seats. Do not interact with others. This virus does not spare anyone. If you do not comply, you could catch the virus and die.”
The virus truly isn’t sparing anyone. Even people in the first-class cabin are catching the virus and some are dying. If it was only impacting people in the economy cabin, we might have been able to keep the engines running.
At first, most people are simply relieved that the air has stopped circulating. Some are happily “social distancing” in their seats. Others can work in their seats and are even thinking, “This new normal isn’t so bad.” The flight attendants are preparing and serving meals.
With all four engines stalled, the plane starts free falling. A plane that is free falling feels the same to the passengers as a plane cruising at 30,000 feet, so the passengers are unaware of the dire situation.
After a while, the flight attendants (representing grocery, produce, and other essential workers) start to realize they could also catch the virus, and they’re risking their lives by walking up and down the cabin’s aisles serving meals. Some flight attendants quit, saying, “We don’t get paid enough to risk our lives like this. We’ll find some empty seats and sit just like everyone else.” Some passengers become restless, as they have not been served their meals.
We are fortunate to have a lot of experts on the plane. The epidemiologists insist that if the plane starts moving forward, the air will start circulating and we will have a spike in deaths. The economists are sounding the alarm that stalling the engines will mean the plane will lose altitude (and our economies could fall into a recession or depression).
The pilots who represent our leaders in government don’t know what to do or which experts they should listen to. One moment, they say the engines need to stop, and the next moment they say the engines need to start up again. “Maybe if we start the engines slowly, everything will be ok”, they muse. They slowly start up one engine, but the virus starts spreading again, and they’re forced to shut it down again.
Governments ask their central banks what can be done to help people and businesses. They decide we can use our virtually unlimited supply of snacks (pretzels and peanuts), and we can give each person a snack and give businesses boxes of snacks (representing stimulus packages and bailouts). The stock market responds positively to the news that the government is willing to use its unlimited supply of snacks to help people, businesses, banks, and the stock market. Some leaders want to make sure their name appears on the snacks, so people know to whom they should be grateful.
The snacks calm many of the people and businesses, but they do not help the engines start up and the plane continues to free fall. China tries to start its engine, but it needs the other engines to consume the air it produces. The plane cannot get forward thrust, and we keep falling. With countries and states slowly starting and stopping engines, we simply cannot gain enough thrust and keep falling.
A crucial rivet supporting a panel of the plane pops out — 6 million jobs lost. Another rivet pops. 6 million more jobs. The panel can’t hold anymore and tears off the side of the plane. With the cabin pressure breached, passengers are being sucked out the hole in the side. Each passenger sucked out of the plane is a business forced to close its doors and lost forever. With each business dependent on other businesses, they are hesitant about doing business with each other. Who knows which one will be sucked out of the cabin next? We keep falling.
We need 12–18 months before we have a vaccine. Every week more people die and the plane falls 1250 feet. Already in the first 4 weeks we have fallen 5000 feet from 30,000 feet to 25,000 feet. In the next 4 weeks we will fall another 5000 feet to 20,000 feet and more than a million people will have died. If we continue this for 6 months, the plane will have fallen from 30,000 feet and crashed into the ocean. Many millions of people will have died from the virus.
Is it even conceivable that we may crash into the ocean? This did happen to a real commercial airline. Air France Flight 447 [story, youtube] from Rio to Paris crashed in the ocean after a similar scenario. The crash was wholly due to human error and avoidable. One pilot kept pulling up the throttle and stalling the plane, while the other pilot kept pushing the throttle down to gain speed. The plane was free falling and the passengers were unaware. The last words of the pilot were “Damn it, we’re going to crash… This can’t be happening!”
In the story Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System — and Themselves, it became clear that it is possible for the global financial system to collapse. We managed to avoid a collapse in 2008. It is not clear that the same strategies that worked then will work in this situation.
We are in uncharted territory. This means we have no experience with what happens if we stall all four engines. Every time we have faced major crises in the past, it has impacted one engine with other engines functioning normally. That is not the case this time.
We have no historical reference point. Sometimes, we compare this situation to the 1929 stock market crash and the Great Depression. Comparing the world economy in 1929 to 2020 is the equivalent to comparing a biplane with a single propeller flying at an altitude of 5000 ft to a commercial aircraft with 4 jet engines flying at 30,000 ft. Each of our economies are dependent on each other in extremely complicated ways.
A flight attendant calmly announces over the speaker system “We are experiencing some turbulence, please put on your seat belts. We expect it will pass in a few minutes”. Our governments, the central banks, the epidemiologists, economists, and business leaders have no experience with shutting off all engines. If no one has any experience with this situation, should we trust that they know what they are talking about when they reassure us that everything will be ok.
Every government gave the top-down order to shut down their engines. However, it will not be so easy to restart the engines, as shutting down the engines required scaring everyone to stay in their homes. Now that everyone fears the virus, it will be much harder to get people out of their homes and consuming — which is the fuel needed to provide thrust to the engines (our economies).
What does it mean to crash in the ocean? Billions of people will be plunged into poverty. Millions of companies will go out of business. There will be a complete loss of trust in our financial systems and currency. People or companies that saved up piles of money may discover that money is just paper. Governments will fail. We will rebuild over decades. People will never forget the experience. Everyone will be risk averse in preparation for another pandemic.
We haven’t crashed yet. We are currently at 25,000 feet. We are free falling and it is slowing the spread of the virus. But we need to quickly figure out how to reduce the number of people dying, let the doctor cope, and restart all the engines. Even if we stop and start different engines at different times, we simply will not have the forward thrust to have the plane gain elevation.
At 25,000 ft, it may seem inconceivable that we will crash into the ocean. But if we continue on the same path, we will be at 15,000 ft in a couple months. At that time, millions of people will have died. Tens of millions will have lost their jobs. More rivets and panels will have torn off the plane. Passengers will be screaming out of fear of dying or fear for their livelihood. Politicians will be screaming at each other. The media will continue to scare their audiences with coverage of the virus and the economy. Many more businesses will fly out the openings on the side of the plane. More rivets will pop out. Countries will default on their debts and go bankrupt. We will be panicking and we will not be able to collectively think clearly about how to get out of this situation.
This story might seem overly alarmist. I am intentionally raising the alarm while we still are at 25,000 ft. By the time we get to 15,000 ft, it will be too late to course correct and keep us from crashing. If you are crossing your fingers and think the cast of characters leading our nations will somehow come together in a divine intervention that gets us out of this situation, think again.
If our leaders are not capable of saving us from crashing, we will need to save ourselves. There is a way out of this that balances saving lives, helping the doctor cope, and getting the engines moving forward. But it will require much more from you than just washing your hands and making masks. It will require you get together with your community to beat the virus, and do it in a way that it does not destroy your economy. But we need to act fast, as we are running out of time. Please take a break from binging on Netflix, Zooming with friends, and making TikToks to read about The Proximity Solution [link].
Then again, we may all have to simply watch as the plane crashes. May be this is nature’s way of correcting the course of humanity.
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