COVID-19 – The travel bans are temporary. This too shall pass.

image credit: © tribalium123 /123RF.COM

Anyone who’s an expert in a niche and rarefied field (like all of us in production and AV) can’t help but be surprised by people’s wrong-headed perceptions of how things work when they’re from outside of the industry. Think of all those stupid images you’ve seen of people holding microphones the wrong way round, talking into a M7CL desk lamp, or this classic of a model holding a soldering iron at the business end:

I’ve had the privilege of spending the last 22 years of my life with a partner that has a double undergraduate degree in microbiology and chemistry, a Master’s degree in chemical engineering, and a career in manufacturing vaccines and life-saving immunotherapies. There’s been a bit of shop talk in the house over those years, and despite not having a science background myself, I’ve learnt a thing or two.

Back when I had a real, grown-up corporate job, HR organised free annual flu vaccinations on site, which was both excellent and convenient. Only about a third of the staff took them up on it. Married to someone who was actually making the stuff, I was curious as to why these educated, intelligent people wouldn’t take advantage of getting something like this for free, with no hassle. The answers I got were the equivalent of the images above. And this was from high-functioning people I respect and like. And that’s the thing – intelligent isn’t the same as educated or informed.

COVID-19 is currently causing havoc in our industry. PL+S has been postponed by eight weeks, but with major exhibitors like Robe and Yamaha pulling out, it’s unlikely to go ahead. Microsoft cancelled the Melbourne leg of its ‘IoT in Action’ event series, Cisco also pulled its event at the MCEC, and Tasmania’s Dark MOFO festival announced cancellation today. Internationally, SXSW is not on, and Coachella has been postponed. Production companies and their staff, particularly casuals, are bearing the brunt of viral panic.

So, here’s some truth. COVID-19 is spreading globally because it’s a relatively mild respiratory virus. I know there’s been deaths, but to take a cold, hard rational view, most of these have been people with existing health conditions or otherwise compromised immune systems who would have most likely died of something else in the very near future. Yes, it can cause viral pneumonia in otherwise healthy people, but flu does a much better job of that, and most of you don’t even bother to get immunised.

While trying not to anthropomorphise a couple of spirals of self-replicating RNA, it’s in a virus’s best interest not to kill its host. If the host dies, it dies. That’s why all the viruses we accept and live with, like rhinovirus (the common cold), are so successful. It’s also why you shouldn’t worry about something like a haemorrhagic fever (e.g. Ebola) ever getting out of control; incredibly nasty viruses incapacitate people and then kill them quite quickly, meaning they don’t have a chance to spread. This is why COVID-19 has gone so far, so fast; people are walking around feeling mostly fine, spreading it everywhere.

As strange as it may seem, a comforting thing to think right now is that COVID-19 has mostly likely spread much, much further and infected many more people than is being reported. Why is that comforting? Because it means people aren’t getting that sick. You can only find it if you’re testing for it, and most of the world isn’t. Most of the world can’t anyway; we can’t make test kits for a novel virus that fast. We also can’t make a vaccine that fast. Well, actually we can (and CSIRO and UQ whipped up a test batch in Melbourne last week), but no respectable health authority in the world will let you inject it into anyone without months and months of testing on thousands and thousands of people.

It’s probable that COVID-19 has been spreading completely unchecked in South East Asia for weeks. It’s almost certainly been running up and down the West Coast of the USA, where the majority of working people have no leave, no healthcare, and no incentive whatsoever to go to a doctor or not go to work. This horse has bolted, but it’s not one of the big Four Horses we need to worry about.

So where does that leave our industry? Short term? Pain. Long term? Meh. The big problem we have right now is that US based firms like Cisco and Microsoft are banning travel for their employees, leading to event cancellations. This is because the US is uniquely litigious. No US company in its right mind would open itself up to being sued if one of its employees got sick, or even inconvenienced.

What I’m worried about is all the casuals and freelancers that depend on these events to pay the rent. This winter will likely be dire for anyone in that position.

I urge anyone with influence not to give in to irrational panic, and stop event cancellations where they can. Crew who are in distress – we are here for you. In Australia, if things get bad, please contact:

CrewCare – https://crewcare.org.au/

SupportAct – https://supportact.org.au/

Emergency? Call the SupportAct Wellbeing Helpline (free and staffed by professional counsellors) 1800 959 500