Rebounding after crisis mode

With over 43% of the population fully vaccinated (over 5,900 people) in Kodiak as of the writing of this article, most people are beginning to feel safe in social settings once again. This community is slowly bouncing back from the restrictions on social gatherings caused by the worldwide COVID pandemic.

As if to underline the image of “bouncing back,” there were people dancing in the rain to live music on Saturday, celebrating the very fact that they could. I know this to be true because I was one of them.

Social gatherings were, and still are, one of the fatalities of the COVID pandemic. To curb the risk of spreading a virus from one infected person to a large group, leaders all over the world have had to limit the occurrence of such events.

It makes logical sense. Statistically, if you wanted to take a closer look at the demise of social gatherings, you would treat “events” as your population of study.

If you are not accustomed to working with statistics, it can be confusing that the word “population” has nothing to do with people or living things when used in statistics; it is simply the group of whatever you are counting. It makes no sense because the meaning of the word populus in Latin is literally “members of the society,” but again: In statistics, it is just the group of numbers to study. Crab Fest is one event in the population of social gatherings.

If I were studying the population of crabs, one crab would take the place of a number in the population of crabs. I would further have to define the population, for example, by defining the area in which the crabs live.

As every fisherman knows like their own heartbeat, populations of any fishery resource fluctuate from one season to the other. Some years are good and there are lots of crabs, and some years are not so good and there are fewer crabs.

Usually, a phase of very high numbers eventually crashes and reverts into a phase of low numbers. Fishing a resource can influence and, in some cases, cause these fluctuations, but they also happen naturally as a result of limitations in resources.

If the crab population in a certain bay were to grow past a certain density, there may not be enough places for juvenile crab to hide and it is more common for a small crab to encounter a larger crab or be spotted by a passing cod fish.

Those encounters then usually lead to a reduction in the size of the crab population because that unlucky little crawler got eaten.

In a classical predator-prey model, if the population of a prey species increases, that means easy pickings for the predators, which in turn increases their numbers. As the predator population becomes larger and the prey also has to share the resources with all of its kindred prey, the prey gets picked off until there are so few that it becomes harder for the larger number of predators to find the prey.

This will cause some predators to starve or at least cause a reduction in reproductive success, resulting in fewer predators. With few predators and less competition, the prey species population can rebound. If you are a visual graphics person, you will now envision two undulating sinus curves that are offset by a lag time.

Whenever an animal population is at its minimum, there is a certain concern for its ability to rebound.

If a small population encounters additional disturbances that inhibit its ability to rebuild, there is a looming threat of extinction. The drastic reduction of any main player in an ecosystem opens up opportunity for other animals to move in and take over that niche.

In this case, it can become more difficult or even impossible for the original population to rebuild. For example, in the case of king crab in Alaska, the rebuilding phase after the fishery crash in the 1970s did not happen; one theory is that cod and other predators have moved in and are eating the juvenile crabs before they have a chance to get to reproductive size.

A combination of disturbances, especially at times of minimal population size, can push a species over the brink of extinction.

Currently, the North Atlantic population of right whales is in danger of extinction because of a combination of difficulty in obtaining sufficient energy (food shortage), a shortage of reproductive females and too many incidences of entanglement with marine debris at a time when the population consists of critically low numbers.

The population of social gatherings has experienced a crash when COVID restrictions canceled one event after another.

Now, with vaccination rates on the rise and COVID infection rates on the decline in the U.S., the population of social gatherings is slowly growing again. I predict that there will be an increase in events coming up because people now have an unsatisfied need: the need to socialize. This population is on course to rebuilding.

While the low point of the sinus curve is critical in saving a species, the rebuilding phase is critical in determining future outcome.

COVID restrictions have had a number of effects on people, on family economics and on small businesses. In one way or another we have all felt the impacts.

For some individuals and families, these impacts have been so devastating that it will be difficult to recover. A quick Google search on “number of homeless people in U.S.” comes up with a number of 580,500 in 2020; this number is coincidentally close to the number of COVID deaths in the US, which is currently at about 594,000.

These are horrible statistics, dark times and real tragedies for all those who have been affected. There are upwards of a million awful life stories, tears and feelings of injustice, loss and desolation. I can only imagine some of these stories, and they must sound similar to the stories told by people living through a war.

The rebuilding phase after a war, the comeback from destruction, can be an empowering time.

Sometimes old systems and constructions can be in the way of positive change, and after destruction the rebuilding starts on a clean plate.

While we are coming back from COVID restrictions, we should review carefully what kind of “normal” we want in our future.

While we perceive the imminent threats of the virus infection to have lessened, it is not a time to drop our guards and be inactive because this is the time when future direction and precedent is made.

This is the time to manifest changes in direction, and make smart choices and decisions based on ethics. Any time is a good time to think about one’s guiding principles, but in a rebuilding phase, the actions and guidelines put in place have long-term implications. 

Now is a good time to be the change we want to see in the world, come out of hiding, pardon a crab, dance in the rain and be amazing.