Welcome to The MHB Podcast. This is Michael Baun. And welcome to my 134th episode. In this episode I want to talk to you about why I think a revival is about to happen. At the time of this podcast we are walking through what might be the most challenging event in modern history. Basically the entire world is under siege by a respiratory virus. Entire societies in nearly every country on Earth have been put into hibernation. I’ve done several episodes on this topic so I want to briefly recap what we’ve learned. This virus is a black swan event, which means it turned out to be far worse than any of us anticipated. At first some churches and businesses were resisting the reality of this pandemic but I’m happy to say since then nearly everyone has chosen to walk in respectful obedience to the authorities. Some of the people who’ve been trusted with authority have abused their power and I’m going to address that in this episode as well. As we’ve continued to understand this event, the best advice remains to wash your hands, avoid touching your face in public, and maintain a social distance of at least six feet from others. If you practice those things then there is no reason for you to add extra stress into your virus management strategy. The economic situation caused by the lockdown is becoming very tumultuous, a lot of people are thinking an economic recovery is going to be slow and painful. It’s possible but I don’t think it has to happen that way. I’m going to do my best to unpack all of these things and take stock of our situation.
You might be suffering from over-exposure to coronavirus coverage but not all coverage is created equal. During this time we need rational, sober-minded commentary that is soothing of any unnecessary fears. That’s why I’m continuing to cover it. I understand not everyone has the capacity to sit in this stuff all day but it really doesn’t bother me so much. I’m using my time in quarantine to listen to as many sides of the argument as I can. I’m an information kind of person and I want to share with you the best information I have. If a revival actually is coming, will you be ready for it? Many of us won’t. The truth is many of us are going to come out of this in worse condition than when we went in. And that’s because many of us have made the wrong choices. I’m not talking about gaining a few pounds of quarantine weight either. I’m talking about full-fledged descents into chaos. It’s been very frustrating for me to read the many reports of increasing domestic abuse and dysfunction. Some people are using this pandemic as an excuse to dive headlong into drug addiction or alcoholism. People all across the country are making free-will choices to turn what is a very temporary pandemic into possibly permanent self-damage and damage to others. The responsibility for these choices does not fall on the shoulders of the pandemic. So the other thing I want to walk through in this episode are practices to avoid and practices to embrace to make sure you come out of this crisis ahead of the game.
Let’s start off with some updates on the actual virus. There’s been a video circulating which shows two ER doctors explaining why they think the lockdown is unnecessary. It only took a couple of days before tens of millions of people started watching it. This drama had a plot twist when YouTube deleted the video from their platform. Removing the video added fuel to the fictional narrative that our government is trying to suppress our rights on account of an overblown pandemic. I don’t blame the people for wanting this to be true. They’re scared because they’ve lost their income and the future is unknown. If the virus isn’t so dangerous and our government is simply corrupt, that means we have more control over this situation than we thought. Control helps to ease the anxiety of the unknown. I watched the doctors’ presentation twice to see what everyone was talking about. It looks to me like these guys were committing egregious misuse of data. Nothing they said convinces me COVID-19 is even remotely similar to influenza and I still believe mitigation prevented a very severe nationwide outbreak. On top of that, I’m not entirely sure that this nationwide outbreak won’t take place anyway once the restrictions are lifted. But I would totally reverse my thinking on this if someone could answer these two questions: First, how can you use data from a non-random sample and accurately apply it randomly throughout the population? Second, how does the data change when you factor in that death lags confirmed cases?
Let me explain. The doctors in the video performed x-amount of coronavirus tests at their urgent care facilities. They took a percentage of how many of these tests came back positive. They applied this percentage to the population in California and determined the virus has infected far more people than we realize. The doctors claimed millions of Californians have been infected while mere thousands of those millions have died. This would mean coronavirus has a case-fatality rate that is less than or similar to seasonal influenza. They used this same percentage calculation on every territory they analyzed. They continuously repeated the phrase millions of cases, small amount of death to reinforce their point. And it would be a good point if their testing sample was random. But their testing was not random. Their testing sample was targeted.
Here’s what I mean: We’ve suffered from a shortage of tests ever since the virus made landfall in the United States. That means our tests have been reserved for symptomatic and high-risk people. People who are sick with coronavirus symptoms and health care workers who are exposed to positive cases all day long. Couple our limited testing capacity with the fact that nearly everyone is terrified to go to the hospital right now and there’s no way these guys had a random sample. If I take a suspect group of people and give them tests it’s no surprise many of these tests would come back positive. But that means absolutely nothing as to the number of positives in the general population.
That would be like me walking into the COVID-19 wing of a hospital and testing the patients there then saying, “Wow! Since 80% of the people on this wing have coronavirus that must mean 80% of the people in my state have coronavirus!” Now imagine instead that I take my tests to a random grocery store in part of the state where there’s not much obvious illness. I test everyone who goes in the store. My results are not going to come back with even close to the amount of positives these guys got by testing sick people who came into their clinic. Then I could say just as easily as they did, “Wow! Since 0% of the people in this grocery store have coronavirus that must mean 0% of the people in my state have coronavirus!” The flaw in that calculation is so obvious I can’t help but feel like I’m missing something when I watch their presentation. How did this misunderstood analysis get shared so many times? I think it’s because people are afraid and they want to get back to work – and honestly I can’t blame them for feeling that way.
I don’t even disagree with these doctors’ opinions that the lockdown should be lifted and each person should be given the responsibility to mitigate on their own. I think the best way forward is to open the economy and charge individuals with the personal responsibility of following the guidelines. When it comes to the doctors’ presentation I simply disagree with their use of the data to suggest the case-fatality rate of coronavirus is similar to or lesser than the seasonal flu. It might be or it might not be. It’s potentially deadly misinformation to tell at-risk people the virus isn’t very dangerous when we honestly don’t know how dangerous it is. We don’t have an accurate understanding of the case-fatality rate because we don’t know how many people are infected. We do know that doctors and nurses who work in hot zones are telling us people with coronavirus are far sicker than influenza patients. If I had to guess I’d say the case-fatality rate is between 0.6 and 0.8 percent. That makes coronavirus several times worse than the flu and we already know it’s more contagious.
The other question I have about their presentation is why they didn’t factor in how deaths lag cases. So if you have x-amount of cases today and x-amount of deaths today, you can’t tell how many of those cases are going to turn into deaths across time. To say that a very small fraction of your cases resulted in deaths without knowing how many of your current cases are going to turn into deaths presents inaccurate data. The best you could do is take your current number of cases, current number of deaths, and then add the new deaths to the count while comparing it to the old number of cases. But that’s not what they did. And you might say, well, Michael doesn’t know what he’s talking about because he’s not an expert in immunology or virology. You’re right, I’m not an expert, but appeal to authority doesn’t make your argument any more or less accurate. These two doctors used appeal to authority repeatedly throughout their presentation while actively undermining the authority of our nation’s top epidemiologists. I actually don’t care whether you have three degrees or whether you just crawled out from under a bridge – I care about whether you’re correct or incorrect. And until those two questions are answered for me or my misunderstanding is revealed to me – I have to conclude that those doctors are incorrect.
Moving on to churches and how the body of Christ has responded to this pandemic. It was a little rocky at first, but I’m very impressed with how nearly every church respectfully submitted to the reality of this disaster. Many pastors have demonstrated faithful resilience by switching their worship online and doing their best to adapt. I’ve heard several accounts that suggest church members are continuing in their ministry-sustaining generosity to their churches. That’s very impressive to me considering how difficult this crisis is economically. In the last episode on this topic I said some churches may not see physical attendance for 12-18 months unless something changes. Well, things appear to be changing so that’s great news. Remdesivir is showing clear clinical data that indicates it will be a promising therapeutic for COVID-19. If we figure out a way to cure people of the most severe symptoms then this entire pandemic is changed. In that reality I would say it’s safe for most people to attend church in person again. I don’t want to get too optimistic, but it’s looking like we won’t have to wait for a vaccine to gain back some normalcy.
But we’re not there yet. As many states begin to reopen I think it’s likely we will see spikes in cases and new outbreaks. This means some of us are going to be stuck with our unfortunate governors longer than others. When this thing was winding up I said people disobeying the guidance of experts would make the crisis worse than it needs to be. Fortunately most people chose the path of wisdom. But some governors and mayors failed to be wise and their tyrannical overreach has succeeded in making the situation worse than it needed to be. Instructing your police force to give citations at drive-in church services is nonsensical government overreach. Closing public parks and beaches is nonsensical government overreach. Pulling people over and giving them citations for going for a drive is nonsensical government overreach. You get the idea. This kind of bad leadership at the state and local level has done two things. It’s caused unnecessary hardship for the population and it’s fed the conspiratorial narrative that the lockdown is a government ploy to steal away your liberties. When you mix incompetent leaders with misinformation about coronavirus, you end up in a situation where many people no longer view this virus as a threat – and that’s a bad place to be if we wish to end this pandemic.
Let’s move away from virus management and talk more about the economic struggle. Remember we are facing two equally dangerous threats here. You should resist the popular understanding that you’re either team virus or team economy. The reality on the ground is both the pandemic and the economic collapse are severe crises. Many states are beginning to explore reopening. They’re not doing this because the pandemic is winding down, they’re doing this because they can no longer afford being shut down. It’s really important for you to remember that otherwise you might go out thinking everything is back to normal. In my area the authorities are setting up a disaster response food bank once per week. Even if you have a little bit of money for food, it would be a good idea to go to these and get more. There are two feelings you want to avoid when it comes to food banks. The first feeling is shame. You should not feel ashamed to go to a food bank during this crisis. The federal government effectively drove a tank right through the storefront of your business. None of this pandemic is your fault and so going to the food bank is an act of wisdom – not a consequence of irresponsibility. The second feeling to avoid is thinking the food banks are short on food so maybe you should leave it for those who are out of money. The food banks are not short on food and they actually need you to take it.
Farmers all over the country are being forced to dump their crops and kill their livestock because they can’t get it processed for grocery. Any rumors of food shortages are purely associated with a gap in the supply chain at the level of processing. Major meat processors like Smithfield and Tyson had to shut their factories down because of coronavirus outbreaks. The President recently used the Defense Production Act to bring these processors back online. There is no food shortage. If anything there’s an overabundance of food and it’s being bottlenecked at processing and delivery. You need to do your part as the consumer so the supply chain keeps flowing. If everyone in America started rationing then an extraordinary amount of food would go to waste. At this moment it’s a bad idea to panic-buy huge amounts and it’s a bad idea to ration tiny amounts. Just do your best to consume normally as if there was no crisis. If you have money then order takeout from your local restaurants to help support their businesses.
When it comes to this economic hibernation, it’s important to remember that this crisis didn’t originate in the market. Pundits keep shouting about unemployment numbers and comparing the current situation to the Great Depression or the Great Recession. They’re trying to scare you by talking about how people had to eat boiled shoe leather during the throes of economic depression. That’s not a very helpful comparison because the situations are not at all similar. The Great Depression began with a stock market crash in 1929. The government withheld stimulus until years later. The Great Recession began with a housing market crash which resulted in mortgage-backed investment banks either going under or being bailed out. The current crisis is unlike those two because our market was strong when the virus made landfall. In addition to a strong market, the government responded rapidly with an economic stimulus of unprecedented size and scope. The point is the economic repercussion is not something that took us by surprise. We voluntarily did this to prevent a nightmare outbreak of SARS. We knew what we were getting into and we knew how to manage the economic risk. In other words the recovery from this pandemic is going to look different from past economic collapses because we don’t have to repair or rebuild our markets – we just have to reengage them. That fact opens up the potential for a very rapid rebound if certain conditions are met.
What are these conditions? Well the worst case scenario is we reopen everything and the virus runs rampant through the population. Apart from the time we purchased to increase our hospital capacity, a widespread resurgence would effectively wipe out all of our gains from the initial mitigation. It’s one thing for businesses to be closed because the government orders them to be closed. It’s quite another if they’re allowed to be open but everyone is too scared to go out. Right now most people aren’t scared to go out and I think a rebound is possible. But if the virus gets out of control and you personally know multiple people who are very sick, you’re probably going to avoid things like hotels and restaurants. As much as people want to get back to work they want to stay healthy even more. You can see this by examining employee behavior in the meat processing industry or even at companies like Amazon. These workers are threatening to walk off the job if they haven’t already. They’re scared because an outbreak is happening in their place of business. To be honest I don’t blame them for wanting to leave. Now imagine this sort of thing was happening in every place of business everywhere in the country. That’s the kind of scenario that can hamstring your economy for real and do actual damage to the markets.
In order for a revival to happen people need to feel safe in public. If we can prevent massive outbreaks I think we can achieve this sense of security. Life will continue to be dangerous for the elderly until the virus is gone or until we have effective therapeutics and a vaccine. I think this future safety is going to come sooner rather than later. The entire world is working on it. In the mean time you have some work to do. We talked a little bit about what needs to happen on an economic level to ignite a revival. Now I want to talk about you. There is a bad part inside of you that wants to use this pandemic as an excuse for not being all that you could be. Trash cans are being littered with liquor bottles all across the country. Domestic violence is surging as spouses finally have a quote “reason” to let their inner resentment turn into rage. In response to losing control of their circumstances, too many people have chosen to abandon self-control as well.
And what happens if you allow yourself to descend into this kind of madness? You’ll do potentially permanent damage to yourself and to others. You won’t enjoy the recovery that others experience when this pandemic becomes nothing but a memory. Bad habits and repercussions will plague your life even while you forget when and why they started. You’ll say and do things that you won’t be able to reconcile with who you thought you were and who you aspire to be. You’ll lose trust in your relationships that you may never be able to rebuild. Indeed, sin will consume you and transform you into a person who cannot recover without the forgiveness of Jesus Christ Himself. But none of that has to happen. Your capacity for personal responsibility is not dependent on your external circumstances. That means you can survive this pandemic as a better person than you were before it began.
But how do you do that? I’m sure you’ve heard the media talk ad nauseam about self-care. Eating right, exercising, getting enough sleep, etc. Those are all good ideas but I don’t think they are sufficient by themselves. In fact, I think you fall into a trap when all of your thoughts and movements are oriented toward making yourself feel better. As human beings we are designed to love God and to love our neighbor. Both of these processes are other-oriented. They require us to let go of self-obsession and use our gifts to benefit others. Using what you’re good at to bring joy to others is the main engine of meaning in your life. Meaning is what gets you through difficult times like the one we’re all in right now. On the deepest level you know this is true even if our self-obsessed culture has tried to convince you otherwise. An author writes a book so others can read it. A painter paints a portrait so others can admire it. A bodybuilder lifts weights to show his muscles to others. A musician writes and performs songs for an audience.
All of the things that color life with meaning and purpose involve being other-oriented. I’ve met people who are miserable, I’ve met people who are depressed, and I’ve met people who have tremendous anxiety. Do you know what they all have in common? An enlarged sense of self. I’m not saying they are selfish, I’m simply saying they have a heightened awareness of their self. The more time you spend thinking about yourself the more you’re going to be susceptible to these maladies. If you shift your attention away from yourself and toward God and your neighbor, you’ll be amazed how much these negative emotions fade into the background. It’s kind of like when you get hungry. If you get hungry enough all the other problems in your life lose their punch. Your attention doesn’t return to them until after you eat and satisfy your hunger.
But imagine if you could shift your focus off of these stressors by your own free will. Imagine if you could do that so not only does the negative emotion fade, but you get rewarded with positive emotion when you observe yourself doing something meaningful. You can make that happen if you practice. And it’s not some cheap trick of the mind to put you in denial of your problems. Remember, you’re designed by God to be other-oriented so to be self-dominated is the real condition of denial. If you start using your skills to benefit others then you will develop a sense of meaning in your life that is durable enough to get you through difficult times like this. Practicing these kinds of things will set you up for success once the country reopens because you’ll be useful for other people and that will make you more valuable than you were before the pandemic. It’s literally a picture of you going in the opposite direction of chaotic dysfunction and that’s what will get you ahead of the game.
Probably the fastest way to undermine your own productivity is to declare yourself a victim. All of us are living in a moment that is highly primed for the mentality of Cain to emerge. Cain pretended to give his best, then blamed God and Abel when his offering was rejected. Instead of rebounding by faith, Cain permanently cast himself as a victim and gave himself over to sin. We’re living in a time where many individuals actually did give their best and had their livelihoods stolen from them. There are people who have walked through life making all the right choices and everything they worked for has been torn asunder in front of them. Whether on the Left or the Right, the thoughts of pretty much everyone are flavored with a single sentiment: this is not fair.
And you’re right, it’s not fair. We’re very lucky when things ever turn out fairly in the fallen order. It isn’t fair that so many couples have to cancel their weddings this year. It isn’t fair that high school seniors are being deprived of their rites of passage. It isn’t fair that essential workers are being exposed to hazardous conditions while others are safe on unemployment. It isn’t fair that elderly people are isolated from their families while inside of nursing homes that are one outbreak away from becoming death traps. It isn’t fair that small businesses which have been around for generations are gone for good. It isn’t fair that people who had time left to live are being buried because of a virus that should have never been released. Right now all of us are experiencing an element of Christ’s crucifixion. Because 2,000 years ago it wasn’t fair when the wicked nailed the Righteous to the cross. Jesus felt the pain of this world when He too asked God why He’d been forsaken. The heart of the gospel is that God’s story doesn’t end with a crucifixion – it ends with a resurrection. The same is true for your own story. It’s not meant to end in ruins, it’s meant to end in a revival. If you keep the faith and you keep trying it’s going to happen for you. A revival is coming whether you’re ready for it or not. You know this because God is in control and His will is irresistible.
As I’ve done with each of these pandemic podcasts, I’d like to end this one with the words of Jesus Christ. This is the Lord commanding His disciples to let go of their self-obsession and have the faith to shoulder a burden for the well-being of others. If you’re watching this episode on YouTube or anywhere else, I’m not going to post the verses on the screen – just sit back and listen:
Mat 16:24 Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
Mat 16:25 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
Mat 16:26 For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?
Mat 16:27 For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done.
Mat 16:28 Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”
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