COVID-19 is a harsh but accurate #systemsthinking teacher. A thread.

Exponential growth of problems will always overwhelm coping capacity if the cycle driving growth is not brought under control. And the transition from 'it seems fine' to crisis happens fast. (Take note climate delayers).

Watch out for delays. The number of new cases shows how many people were infected 5 days ago. The number of people in ICU shows how many people were infected 3 weeks ago.

If the indicator that guides your action is a delayed one (say ICU capacity being strained) the system will have weeks of momentum in the wrong direction coming at you once you start to act. This is what we are sadly about to experience, I fear.

Your response has delays too. Time to ramp up testing, produce PPE, educate the people, install the newly elected science-believing President. While your delays churn the reinforcing feedback loop turns and turns and turns.

Systems are nested within other systems. You want people to stay home when they are sick in order to slow the reinforcing feedback loop of infection? Great. But you have no sick leave safety net? Not so great.

Sacrifice zones (prisons, farm dependent of migrant workers, meat packing plants) make everything worse in interconnected systems. Everyone is safe or no one is, at the end of the day.

It's cheaper to prevent incoming disaster than to ignore it and deal with the consequences. Thought experiment: a national 6 week lockdown in March. (Climate delayers, again take note).

Short-term, self-centered thinking fails us again and again in this complicated interconnected world characterized by mutual causality. Maybe, try something else? Maybe?