Flattening the Curve

Flatten the curve. Flatten the curve. Flatten the curve. When people repeat themselves so aggressively, I get sick of it. I would certainly appreciate it if I never heard that phrase again. Of course, it isn't just the words that bother me. It's also how those words were used.

Towards the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, restrictions were imposed to flatten the curve. They explained this to us. There were concerns about hospital capacity. If we embraced proposed restrictions, we could keep the curve below capacity.

All portrayals of the curve followed a similar pattern. The worst part of the pandemic wouldn't be nearly as bad, but the pandemic would last longer as a result. Flattening the curve was not intended to reduce the cases associated with COVID-19. It was about spreading cases out so that hospitals could better manage them.

The initial estimate was that it would take two weeks to flatten the curve. When those two weeks were finished, the narrative completely changed. We used the threat of a second wave as an argument to extend restrictions. Even though hospitals were starting to fall below capacity, we maintained policies that were aimed at capacity. For many of us, two weeks became two years.

Throughout all of this, we defended all our actions based on the ideas that we should listen to the experts. One of the problems with this was that the experts were frequently wrong. The narrative surrounding flattening the curve turned out to be an early mistake. There was also more going on than just the pandemic. The experts didn't even consider the impacts of their policies on such things as mental health or financial wellbeing.

To further complicate things, a lot of people who bragged about listening to the science frequently got the messaging wrong. A lot of Americans insist that lack of full compliance prolonged the pandemic. What the experts were telling us while asking us to flatten the curve was quite different. They were actually telling us to prolong the pandemic to prevent hospitals from becoming overwhelmed. Of course, full compliance was never a realistic goal. If our approach depended on full compliance, then it was clearly the wrong approach.