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I wasn't too worried about covid19 until I realized the radical disconnect between the understanding of the real risk of this I see here and on twitter vs in th

I wasn't too worried about covid19 until I realized the radical disconnect between the understanding of the real risk of this I see here and on twitter vs in the real world. At least in the US people won't take this seriously until we see very high numbers of cases. Which means when people do take it seriously, we'll be in trouble. It's not simply a case of not understanding exponential growth, Americans actively do not want to understand what's happening. I was in a meeting yesterday and someone, with no hint of reservation, said they felt very optimistic about the business in the next quarter. This bizarre denial means that things will inevitably get much worse in the US then they will in Italy (and we don't have the political will to solve this like China has even in the most extreme cases).

blowski 7y ago
If nobody is diagnosed as having COVID19, then Trump was right that COVID19 wasn't a problem. So how do you keep diagnoses low - by not testing anybody! It's like turning off your phone so you can argue "I didn't get any phone calls".
- dkarl 7y ago
  He already hedged his bets by saying it was a huge problem. Hoax, real, no problem, big problem, he's doing a good job of covering the important possibilities.
nonbirithm 7y ago
I don't think there has been an outbreak that could be this deadly in the age of prolific social media use. Or maybe it's been too long since the swine flu for people to remember, or the swine flu wasn't as deadly. People saw it as a thing that comes and goes. Just news that will tide over, and people can remain optimistic as they always have that life can go on exactly as it always has. This has only ever happened in movies. It can't happen to them. Actual virus outbreaks are incompatible with this mindset. The markets vastly underestimated the impact it would have. People can exercise their liberty and individualism and right to an opinion to go off and unknowingly infect other people. A week ago I stated I was concerned over the virus and that I was taking shelter to a coworker and got back "there's no need to panic, the media makes it out to be worse than it is" and "this is no worse than the flu." By now there isn't a soul that's not working from home, including them. It's like speed limits only being imposed on residential neighborhoods after someone's kid gets run over and killed. For these kinds of things some people will only learn when it's too late to take action and the consequences become apparent. They would have to learn to switch off their optimism when it's appropriate next time, if there's a next time. Or maybe they won't learn, and the actions of a majority we don't control will have irreversible consequences for us as a species. In that case I can't see how it wouldn't be fated. It's a matter of getting everyone on Earth who is well-meaning or not to cooperate in just the right manner when some of them simply won't. Antibiotic resistance is a thing because we trust the general public to take them properly, and they don't. When the next outbreak is even more deadly or contagious, who knows what will become of us.

blowski 7y ago

If nobody is diagnosed as having COVID19, then Trump was right that COVID19 wasn't a problem. So how do you keep diagnoses low - by not testing anybody! It's like turning off your phone so you can argue "I didn't get any phone calls".

dkarl 7y ago
He already hedged his bets by saying it was a huge problem. Hoax, real, no problem, big problem, he's doing a good job of covering the important possibilities.

nonbirithm 7y ago

I don't think there has been an outbreak that could be this deadly in the age of prolific social media use. Or maybe it's been too long since the swine flu for people to remember, or the swine flu wasn't as deadly. People saw it as a thing that comes and goes. Just news that will tide over, and people can remain optimistic as they always have that life can go on exactly as it always has. This has only ever happened in movies. It can't happen to them. Actual virus outbreaks are incompatible with this mindset. The markets vastly underestimated the impact it would have. People can exercise their liberty and individualism and right to an opinion to go off and unknowingly infect other people. A week ago I stated I was concerned over the virus and that I was taking shelter to a coworker and got back "there's no need to panic, the media makes it out to be worse than it is" and "this is no worse than the flu." By now there isn't a soul that's not working from home, including them. It's like speed limits only being imposed on residential neighborhoods after someone's kid gets run over and killed. For these kinds of things some people will only learn when it's too late to take action and the consequences become apparent. They would have to learn to switch off their optimism when it's appropriate next time, if there's a next time. Or maybe they won't learn, and the actions of a majority we don't control will have irreversible consequences for us as a species. In that case I can't see how it wouldn't be fated. It's a matter of getting everyone on Earth who is well-meaning or not to cooperate in just the right manner when some of them simply won't. Antibiotic resistance is a thing because we trust the general public to take them properly, and they don't. When the next outbreak is even more deadly or contagious, who knows what will become of us.