Seeing into the future

 This was a Letter to the Editor I wrote - It was published November 20 in the Waterbury Republican.

We wish we could see into the future, and science and engineering give us a method to maybe do that. It is called a control feedback loop. One you are very familiar with is the cruise control in your car. You set the speed for 65 mph and if you go faster the cruise control will let off on the accelerator and the car will slow down. If it slows down too much then the cruise control will accelerate and bring the car back to the set speed. There are many other examples, like the air conditioner in your house. Each has its own set point; the equilibrium it tries to maintain.

Humans as a group act like a control feedback loop. One example is the current Covid 19 crisis. At first, infections are low and people go about their normal business. As the virus spreads and more people get infected, people read about it in the paper or see it in the news; or unfortunately they might know someone who has gotten sick or died. They change their attitude and habits. Then the virus stops spreading and the numbers go down. After a while people go back to their old habits and the cycle starts over again; although hopefully, this time they respond quicker to the spike or enough people have adopted habits that keep the spike in check.

The set point of the virus is what we tolerate. For the healthcare industry it cannot be over the capacity to handle the patient load. If healthcare gets overwhelmed then it is no different than setting the cruise control on your car to 70 in a school zone. You will lose control and eventually crash. If this is the critical set point, then all others, economic, political or religious, must adapt to the set point. At some time a vaccine or improved medicine will allow us to return to a different set point. Until then, it pays us to pay attention to the numbers.