The Military, COVID, and the Science of Numbers

Carlos E. Martínez, Brigadier General, USAF, Retired

Growing up I was fascinated by numbers and always excelled in math. So, it came as no surprise that when it was time to go to college, I went to an engineering school. There I learned about something called Operations Research — the science of numbers, data, and statistics to solve real world day-to-day problems and I was immediately hooked.

Operations Research, or OR as it is often called, had its origins in World War II. The allies were losing many ships and lives to the German U-boats that plied the waters of the Atlantic Ocean. Although the ship convoys had destroyer escorts that pursued and attacked the U-boats with depth charges, the U-boats usually managed to escape.

The Allies put together a team of scientists, engineers, and naval operations personnel to study the problem. They discovered that between the time the U-boats were spotted and the time that the destroyers were able to start dropping explosives, the U-boats usually had descended to a different depth than the munitions were set to explode. Using numbers and statistics, they advised the naval forces to simply adjust the depth of the explosions to match the depth where the U-boats were most likely to be.

Not surprisingly, U-boats started getting struck and sunk so often that the Germans radically cut back on their attacks. The Germans thought that the allies had come up with a new secret weapon. We had; it was the science of numbers.

I loved this science and wanted to pursue a career in operations research, however, because of the Vietnam War, I had to set aside my ambitions aside for a while. I joined the Air Force to be a pilot, where I learned numbers were also quite important. Factors such as airspeed, altitude, G-forces, and weight were particularly important. Eventually, I got back into the business of operations research and joined forces with others to address all kinds of military problems such as locations of sensors, logistics supply levels, and expected enemy force strengths.

These are the kinds of problems for which the military uses data collection, statistics, and modeling and simulation to analyze carefully because they have real life and death implications and can mean the difference between winning and losing a battle or a war.

Today, our nation is facing a new enemy, COVID-19, a silent killer which we are learning more about each day. Like military OR analysts, pandemic researchers are constantly collecting and analyzing data and have developed models to predict the spread of the disease and identify the best means by which to control it. And, as more is learned about the disease, they update and refine the models upon which decisions can be made. Again, they are using the science of numbers to defeat the enemy.

Unlike the military models whose outcomes usually affected hundreds or thousands of lives, the stakes are much higher with this unseen enemy, with the results affecting hundreds of thousands or even millions of lives.

Nevertheless, today we have an administration that downplays science in almost any form, and specifically scoffs at pandemic models that that clearly show the relative value of wearing masks as compared to other possible risk mitigation strategies. Our current president has been cited for “magical thinking” that the virus will miraculously disappear one day and all will be well again. Most recently, through wanton disregard for facts, his administration has made the White House an epicenter for COVID-19 infections, thereby putting our national security at risk.

To battle this enemy, we must rely on the science of numbers. All the models show that the most effective course of action is frequent hand washing, mandatory wearing of masks and maintaining strict social distancing. However uncomfortable these measures may seem; the science of numbers says that it is the best way to end the pandemic and enable a real economic recovery. Current models predict that ignoring these measures will lead to between 300,000 and 400,000 deaths by the end of the year.

Skeptics may argue that models are just models and that even generals who have relied on numbers and analysis have lost battles and wars. That is true, but it usually was not because the models were wrong, but because of either “dumb luck” or because their opponents did better planning. The one thing I can say, however, is that no general has ever won by relying solely on “wishful thinking”.

This fall we have a choice. We can continue on our perilous path with the existing administration, or we can put our support behind Joe Biden, who believes in science and trusts his pandemic researchers and advisors to provide a better chance of beating this enemy.

So, go out this fall and do the right thing by joining me in voting for Biden and Harris.