"Tangent: I wonder if it’s partly the changing media landscape from 2009 to 2020." You think that the reaction of health agencies worldwide was the result of a

"Tangent: I wonder if it’s partly the changing media landscape from 2009 to 2020." You think that the reaction of health agencies worldwide was the result of a "changing media landscape"? This takes quite an extraordinary perspective to serious posit. And just to be clear, there was a huge reaction to SARS (a sibling to this virus) six years before H1N1. A massive, coordinated worldwide effort, quarantines, and whole-cities going quiet. How do you blame the media for that, or was it a "changing media landscape" between 2003 and 2009? SARS thankfully was contained through heroic efforts so it never yielded the catastrophe we have now. Regardless, they're very different viruses. Even if we pretend that the world "barely noticed" H1N1 (hint: It saw a huge response), health agencies and their experts have rang the warning bell about this virus because of the way it accelerates and presents in an area. They aren't jerking about CFR (which is a post-facto statistic), they're noticing that it hits an area and as it spreads the need for massive intervention explodes. That is why Wuhan got so much attention early on, and why cities are taking extraordinary, historic actions. Rather than repeat myself - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22607318 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22607318 Trying to casually blame the media is not useful.