An open letter to our California health authorities in general, and those in Santa Barbara County in particular:
These past 18 months have been difficult for all of us, but especially for those of us who lead. Heads of businesses, schools, nonprofit organizations, universities and government entities have borne heavy burdens, and this has surely been true of you, our health authorities.
Not one of you foresaw the weight of authority that would suddenly come upon you in early 2020, and while many of us have not enjoyed the impositions placed upon us, I don’t think we can fault you for the work you have done.
I have reminded my friends and family many times that we should be grateful that it wasn’t us who had to decide how to navigate the COVID-19 pandemic, and I can only imagine the strain on you and your families as your names suddenly became household-known.
As a school leader in our Santa Barbara community with children and employees under my care, recalling the full spectrum of blessings and complaints that have come my way, I can only imagine what must have come to you, and the steps that you surely took to insulate yourself and your loved ones from the worst of it.
Let me assure you that this is not one of those letters.
Even so, as we enter today into another masks-indoors mandate while planning our school policies for the imminent year, one simple thought has impressed itself upon me: we can no longer afford to measure this pandemic in one dimension.
Specifically, we can no longer make a reasonable case that health policies should solely follow case count numbers without giving equal weight to the full range of other health, economic and educational factors.
My reasoning is straightforward, and I’ve started to see similar logic from a variety of sources.
For much of the pandemic, case count numbers were a good measure of how many people were truly ill, of hospitalizations and intensive-care unit capacity, and certainly of death rates. The correlation was easily visible on our excellent Santa Barbara County Community Dashboard, which I check most days in order to be fully equipped with tactical leadership information.
From March 2020 to March 2021, the correspondence is obvious and strong, as you can see from the nearby charts. Rising case numbers meant more hospitalizations, more ICU cases and more deaths. The surge we experienced in July 2020 and especially last December-January was a terrible blow to our community, and most of the 465 COVID-19 deaths came during this time.
But this is no longer the case. We experienced a new (albeit smaller) surge of positive cases beginning in July, but our dashboard — as of Aug. 8 — shows no corresponding rise in ICU hospitalizations or deaths.
It is true that there has been a rise in general hospitalization that seems to correspond as in the past (the orange hospitalization line), but there is no surge in the ICUs.
It is also helpful to see these data in absolute terms as well as relative: there are currently four or five ICU beds in use treating COVID-19 patients in a county with almost a half-million residents.
For the first 12 months of this pandemic, positive case counts in our community did indeed mean that our community was experiencing sickness and death.
But going forward, we must now draw a distinction between “to test positive” and “to be ill” or “to be at risk of death.” This shift in thinking is supported by the data — what a wonderful tool!
It is now reasonable to say that the danger of this pandemic is past even though we still see positive test results. This is likely due to the strong vaccination rate in our community (71% of the eligible, 52% total), the general spread of natural immunity through asymptomatic spread, and the above-average health of Santa Barbara County residents and their outdoor lifestyles.
I cannot speak for whether a similar phenomenon is happening in Australia, Angola or the Arabian peninsula, but that is largely irrelevant to daily policies here in Santa Barbara. There is, however, good data on the Los Angeles County Dashboard that would suggest we can at least apply such thinking statewide.
To put it another way, what if there were no case-count tools constantly in front of us? What if nobody knew about case counts because we weren’t measuring them? What if we formed our Santa Barbara County community policies after walking the hospitals and not asking who was testing positive but asking who was ill?
It is clear to me, in August 2021, that most of us would not even know that there was a virus transmitting through the community. Some of us would notice the same runny noses and scratchy throats that have been common to human experience, and we would think nothing of it as we dropped our children off at the baseball summer camp or the church youth group.
With all this in mind, we must stop measuring this pandemic in one dimension.
Every leader, every parent, every entrepreneur considers multiple dimensions in order to make wise decisions. We all consider risks each day and weigh them up against monetary cost, possible gain, social effects and other factors. When any one dimension becomes absolute, we become unbalanced in our decision-making.
Yes: it is undoubtedly safest for me to stay at home today. I will not catch COVID-19 or a cold, I will not get hit by a car, and I will not get food poisoning at a restaurant.
But if we weigh up those possible risks against other competing factors, such as educating our children well, providing goods and services to support families, experiencing the pleasure and benefit of physical activity and social interaction, we make better and wiser decisions that lead to human flourishing.
In the same way that I opened this letter, let me close it: with respect and thankfulness.
Thank you for leading us through the challenge of the past 18 months, showing us how to combat a new disease. Because of your heroic efforts, general community health practices such as handwashing and sanitization have never been stronger.
Your policies by all appearances have completely eradicated influenza — if that’s not a victory for the human race I don’t know what is!
But now, having taught us better health practices, it is time to acknowledge that other factors of mental illness, economic need, education and social interaction must once again be weighted more heavily in our decision-making processes.
The data tell that danger of this pandemic is past us, and it is time to allow businesses and individuals the freedom to implement what you have taught in the way that best fits their goals.
As a school leader, I do not wish to require my students or staff to wear masks indoors or outdoors for the sake of their morale and pedagogy both, but I think it wise to continue to monitor temperature and send home those who are clearly sick.
My recommendation would be the same for any school or university, because we are by nature institutions that are social and pedagogical. Other entities should make their own decisions according to their particular nature.
Thank you for the faithful discharge of your duties at great personal expense; may you now have the courage and wisdom to return us to a way of life in which health and safety are once again primarily the responsibility of individuals and organizations.
If you could accomplish this in time for the start of school, that would be highly appreciated.
— Rodney Meadth is principal of grades seven to 12 at a Santa Barbara independent school, and earned a degree in aerospace engineering from RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. He and his wife are parents of four young sons and the family is active in a local church and various community youth sports programs. The opinions expressed are his own.