Practice Brings Mastery

What the CBC unrepentantly calls swine flu is still in the news. I think that's a good thing, but I may be alone. Lots of people are simply bored. Others are bewildered by the attention this flu gets. Their reasons include, but are not limited to, "it's tiresome" arguments.

• This flu is less lethal than the "regular old flu," and trying to correct those factual misconceptions is tiresome.
• The media is hyping the flu as a sign of the apocalypse and is desperate for someone to blame (Mexico, anyone? porous borders?) and that's tiresome.
• The public is getting het up and freaked out and that's tiresome.

They're right--those things are tiresome. However, I think the current flu pandemic is still newsworthy, and that's because handling this situation gives us practice--practice that's valuable and necessary.

Here's the context. In Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell cites studies from the early 1990s about achievement. (Say whatever disparaging things you like about this Canadian's books, and people do. He's still extremely good at finding interesting scientific studies and musing about them.) These studies show that world-class violinists practice more than those who are average violinists. Further studies show that it takes about 10,000 hours of practice to master any skill.

Ten thousand hours. That's five YEARS of 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year (two weeks of vacation). More realistically, it's ten years of 4 hours a day, 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year (still two weeks of vacation). That's focused, attentive practice with the intent to improve.

Five years, ten years--hours of practice, every single day. A lot of time.

And how much time do epidemiologists, public health officials, policy-makers, and virologists get to practice handling pandemics? How many chances?

This outbreak is an opportunity for all of them to practice. We should applaud that, because when another outbreak of disease does occur, especially if another outbreak is more lethal than this virus seems to be, we want them to be skilled. We want them to have mastered their work.

We want them to be able to track the disease accurately and find its source. We want them to be able to find and explain the risk factors, the transmission routes, the possible and necessary steps. We want them to be able to predict useful actions governments and individuals can take, evaluate those suggested actions, and recommend different ones if the suggested ones don't work.

Scientists have computer models. But biological creatures, like viruses and humans, also behave in unexpected and essentially unpredictable ways. Ask any computer scientist--she spends a lot of time tweaking her model's assumptions and algorithms.

And guess what? We, the public, have a role here, too. This outbreak represents a chance for us. We can listen as specialists tell us information; we can ask clarifying questions. We can learn to assess risk more accurately. We can also evaluate the media coverage--is it hype? what is being downplayed? how big a leap are they making to get to that conclusion? And we can give them useful feedback that will help their performance--and ours.

Furthermore, we can extend that learning beyond the science to international relations, the role of government, even to history. For example, why might China be extra-sensitive about this flu outbreak--to the point of quarantining Canadians simply for being from Canada? Would a group of American students have submitted to a quarantine (while presenting no flu symptoms) as cheerfully? Why or why not?

The good news for us is that we have the chance to practice these skills every day, far more often than the epidemiologists et al. can.

So let's do that, instead of moaning about how boring it is, or ignoring the story, or freaking out. Please?