One month before the NonProphet crew got COVID our friend Steve was deep in it. After being hospitalized his illness progressed to the point that End Of Life discussions were held with his advocates. He came through an experience that was different than ours and learned some interesting and useful lessons so we decided to talk about it. 

One of the first topics to arise was that of self-responsibility, which begins with awareness, an accurate assessment of one's current condition, and most importantly in this case, a strong personal desire to live. Medical personnel cannot make you want to survive, that must come from within and if you can't muster the will to live through a few weeks in the hospital (and all that ensues) you might not.

We also addressed the fact that it is really difficult to know what to do, and how to behave to remain healthy enough to avoid the hospital. We should have plenty of data and experience after two years of the virus circulating but attempts to collect and clarify the data are seen as efforts to minimize the threat — these are not the same thing. The only deliverable we have been offered after all those months is, "Get vaccinated." Surely this is not the best that the human species can come up with.

Data collection and analysis on an individual level is made more difficult by lockdowns. The more isolated we are the more we depend on technology, and the less accustomed to actual face-to-face social interaction we are. This allows whatever information that is permitted on various tech platforms to become authoritative declaration with little possibility for discussion and examination. And so isolated, the recipient of such information is even less able to critically assess it because people with whom they might discuss it aren't in close proximity, or have been washed down their own rabbit holes.

We spoke briefly about mandates and concluded that it is difficult to message properly (as policy) to people who aren’t receptive to it. We asked, "how do we tune the listeners to be more open and receptive?" but had no immediate answers although we did realize the difference between tricking people into changing their behavior and making them do so is that the latter causes resistance, while the former may not. Government too often resorts first to "make", i.e. coercion, rather than exploring the more difficult task of incentivizing citizens toward the behavior they believe best.

Perhaps lives were saved by these measures but were lives improved? It's a good question to ask.

Finally, during the third hour we actually talk about fitness, and how to program one's post-COVID recovery, which was distinctly lacking in the hospital discharge papers — and everywhere else on the internet, except here: https://www.nonprophet.media/journal/covid-recovery