HVAC moderation in the time of COVID
The ups and downs of controlling a thermostat (or a pandemic)
Do you know a person who gets sweating-ly hot so they turn the AC on and when it doesn’t provide immediate relief they turn the A/C waaaay down, then a half hour later they are shivering so they turn the A/C off and when that doesn’t provide immediate relief they turn the heat on and put it waaaay up, and then a half hour later they’re sweating again so they turn the A/C off, then A/C waaaay down, and so on and so on, over and over, constantly flipping between the two extremes?
I feel like Florida (and much of the US) is like that person in how we react to COVID-19, except that instead of A/C and heat we’re flipping between extremes of caution and business-as-usual, and instead of oscillating every half hour the oscillation takes about 6 to 8 weeks. Back in April, when it was clear that COVID was being a problem in places, stay-at-home orders were put in place, so that by late May infection and death rates here were low. People looked around and saw that things had improved, and so orders were lifted and lots of people went back to business as usual (e.g., mask use was low and some bars were full again). By early July it was clear to almost everybody that COVID was increasing quickly and so measures got extreme again (e.g., nearly everyone in stores had masks on and bars shut again). Today, almost six weeks later, the infection rates are dropping again and deaths appear to have nearly maxed, and so I expect that we’ll soon wear masks less (I already saw that today at the store) and socialize more again (e.g. open schools?), and then 6 to 8 weeks from now I expect the rates will be bad and we will go into caution mode again for 6 to 8 weeks until we go into business-as-usual mode again, and so on and so on, oscillating between these two modes (businesses closed open closed open closed, masks on off on off on), always fighting last month’s battle, never reaching a median balance of needs. Are we even capable of feeling cause and effect when there are at least six weeks between the two?
Oscillations like this seem to be normal for humans (e.g. diets every 2 years, conservative/liberal every 8 years, fascism every 100 years, vaccination/anti-vaxx every 50 years?) and just show that humans and their societies aren’t good students of history.
As for that thermostat. Try adjusting it a little at a time, and wait a little bit before maybe making another wee adjustment.
Tweaks and a tiny bit of patience. Is that too much to ask?