I said it and I am proud to have said it. Back in the earliest of days when they were discussing all of the extraordinaire measures that we would need to take to “flatten the curve”, I stated that after the measures work, we will then be faced with the idea that “this was all overkill and it was not necessary” based on the success of those very measures.
We see it all the time in our profession and it is darn near impossible to prove the success of safety without removing it and letting bad things happen. I can not help but compare these last two months with my 27 years of implementing LOTO at facilities that did not believe it was necessary; many thought it was silly, government over-reach, just for the stupid people (ironically my favorite response), etc. Sound familiar? Some of these plants had even suffered significant injuries (and even death in several facilities), but that was not even enough to convince them for the need for LOTO. Heck, as many of you have probably experienced, some of the loudest voices against safety practices like LOTO are from the very workers who have suffered injuries because of the lack of safety practices such as LOTO.
But here we SIT (driving me insane as I want to get back to work!) rejoicing in our success from those extraordinaire measures and we see a segment of the population doing exactly the same thing – using the success of those extraordinaire measures to prove to us that the risks were “overblown” and that none of these measures were even necessary. I even find many of my patriotic friends decrying that we have given up our rights and liberties in return for these successes and they quote a lot of our founding fathers who decried giving up liberties for safety.