Swimming Pools and "Poop"
From my Twitter feed (Jeremy Konynkyk, Center for Global Development)
Alright. There is a LOT of chatter on this website bashing those who are saying most of the country still isn't ready for a safe reopening.
So, as we approach what would normally be summer pool season, here's a short analogy about pooping and accountability.
Imagine you're at the pool, and a kid poops in the water. It happens a few times every summer.
What happens next? Everybody clears the pool. That's the initial step to protect people from the poop.
But it's not the end of the story.
There's a next step - some poor soul on pool staff has to go fish out the poop. It's a pretty thankless job.
Then they have to shock the pool with chlorine to kill off bacteria.
And then everyone waits half and hour or so til it's safe to swim again. https://t.co/y0IMgvvDT9
You can see where I'm going with this.
If the lifeguards tell everyone to clear the pool, but the pool staff declines to actually get rid of the poop, what happens?
No one can go back in. The poop is still there. Limbo.
Whose fault is it that it's not safe to go back in the water? Who is accountable?
Do you focus on the people saying "clean up the poop before we can go back in safely!"?
Or do you focus on the staff whose job it is to clean up the poop?
And what would you think if the staff started saying - look, just get back in. Be a warrior.
The answer is pretty obvious.
So right now, our country is a big swimming pool with a poop problem.
And the President, rather than fix the mess, is urging everyone back into the pool regardless and saying the *real* problem is those people who think the pool's not safe yet. They must hate the pool, etc.
And a lot of the public is buying it!!
The President's whole play here is to distract from his failure to fix the mess by focusing the country's attention on people who don't want to swim in a pooped-in pool.
He wants you to believe they're saying you should never go back in.
And if you buy that, he's off the hook. He doesn't have to clean up the poop, and he doesn't get blamed for failing to do so. Win-win for him.
But NO ONE is saying "never go back in the pool." They're saying - please clean out the poop first.
Everyone wants to get back in the pool. Everyone wants to reopen the country.
And if you're frustrated that we can't, please hold the right folks accountable. The problem isn't the people saying we need to reopen *safely*.
It's the people saying needn't bother with that part.
Addendum - @KatzOnEarth helpfully extends the analogy in this post.
Telling people to just be warriors and go back in the pool isn't just reckless, it also *won't work*. Maybe a few hardy souls will take their chances.
But those who can will opt out. https://t.co/4fjAIqyzTv
If people can see the poop still floating in the pool, they're not going to be convinced by the staff telling them it's safe to go in.
Similarly, governors lifting restrictions won't yield economic recovery until a critical mass of people feel that reopening is safe.
So the pool staff need to stop telling us it's too hard to clean up the poop, and probably unnecessary, and that if we just wait maybe it will go away on its own.
Instead, do what all other pools in town are doing and clean up the.
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