The consequences of the coronavirus and stress: the operator presses the wrong button...

Andrey Zlobin, mathematician

There is such a concept - "human operator". It is associated with management activities. You can consider such activities in a broad sense, including all objects of management, or you can limit yourself only to the sphere of technology. For example, operators are pilots, railway locomotive drivers, car drivers... Do operators often make mistakes? It happens. In some cases, the error may not be noticed at all, while in other cases man-made disasters with dire consequences occur. Psychological factors are often the cause of tragedies. In what mood did the employee come to work, did he sleep well, what is his temperament, what are his family relationships, relationships with colleagues, is he satisfied with the working conditions, salary - all this, in one way or another, affects the correctness of the actions of the human operator. In the same row, you can put age, health, monotony of work, fatigue, lack of time, stress, biological rhythms and much more.

What other factors can cause operator error? In fact, there are a lot of them. And again, let us note the special role of psychology. While working as a senior researcher at VNIIFK, the author had to deal with the analysis of the psychoemotional state of highly qualified athletes. For this, various methods were used, including the work of a call center, the use of wireless communication technologies, remote psychological monitoring, special automated psychological tests, content analysis, elements of psycholinguistics, etc. sports competitions are characterized by maximum physical and psychological stress. In the process of such studies, psychological breakdowns, various extreme situations and even catastrophic events are studied. As a rule, a thorough analysis of the entire set of facts related to the psychoemotional state allows predicting and preventing in advance many risks and critical errors. This applies not only to sports, but also to other areas of human activity that require error-free actions in a difficult situation.

Health is one of the most important factors affecting the work of a human operator, making him the right management decisions. And today it is just right to sound the alarm. The fact is that many leading scientists and specialists pay attention to the severe physical and psychological consequences of coronavirus disease. The consequences for people with mental disorders are especially dangerous. Treatment of such patients is accompanied by additional difficulties, since not all "anxious" patients adhere to the doctor's recommendations.

A significant number of people who have had coronavirus complain of shortness of breath, note a lack of oxygen, some blurred consciousness, memory problems ... error. Considering that the number of coronavirus infections in Russia has exceeded 10 million cases, the danger of numerous operator errors, technological incidents, accidents, catastrophes is growing literally before our eyes. This is confirmed by media reports, in which the alarming vocabulary of the coronavirus pandemic, its consequences, psychological problems of the population, including a lot of stress, behavioral deviations, industrial tragedies with heavy casualties, are increasingly encountered.

Forecasts of the incidence of coronavirus infection, obtained using traditional mathematical models, look overly optimistic. There are still a great many such mathematical publications. If these predictions are followed, then a false sense of complacency and a weakening of vigilance in relation to a dangerous virus can arise. Nevertheless, there is no reason for optimism. If you look at the world statistics, then every month the coronavirus continues to infect many millions of people, and there is not even a hint that the incidence schedule will plateau. At the same time, the suspicion arises that a whole class of complex mathematical models of morbidity is simply not published, and therefore the public continues to remain in the dark. Even thirty years ago, there was already mathematics that far surpassed the current principles of pandemic modeling. Why the corresponding scientific publications are not visible today remains a mystery. Is it just that such mathematical models are extremely expensive? Meanwhile, the number of people who have recovered from the coronavirus is rapidly growing, whose nervous system could in one way or another be affected by COVID-19. At the same time, apparently, no one really thinks about how error-free the work of a recovered human operator will be.

The whole world remembers the monstrous accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant that took place in 1986. This terrible lesson should constantly remind you that the physical and psychological capabilities of a person are not unlimited. People are not automatons; they are capable of miscalculations. Having been ill, driven into a corner by endless stresses, brought to a state of passion, any human operator can make an irreparable mistake. At the same time, it is naive to expect salvation from digital technologies and artificial intelligence. Algorithms and computer programs are still developed by a person susceptible to illness and stress. The future is extremely alarming precisely because the burden of stress for the population has become prohibitive. And if the law on evacuation and the standards of burial in mass graves are already being voiced, then it is unlikely that the psyche of the human operator will become more stable from this. Sometimes it's enough to just press the wrong button...