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I hope one thing that comes of this outbreak is that all nations develop the processes and capabilities to quickly stop the spread of outbreaks in general. COV

I hope one thing that comes of this outbreak is that all nations develop the processes and capabilities to quickly stop the spread of outbreaks in general. COVID19 is worse than flu, but not as bad as it could have been. We could get hit with something worse in the future. Imagine a strain of Ebola that gestates asymptomatically longer, or another coronavirus with higher mortality rate. This outbreak is good preparation for that one. Anytime you’re dealing with a harmful exponential growth process like an outbreak, the best way to handle it is to overreact early, quickly and briefly. Kill it hard while it’s still small and easy to kill, or it will get out of control fast. Put everything on lockdown/shelter-in-place for a few weeks - [max(gestation period|time to develop and deploy test kits) + safety factor] - test extensively, isolate and treat the infected, stop the outbreak, and then return to normal. Outbreak stopped dead in its tracks, economic damage is minimized and mostly short-term. This is basically what South Korea did and they got their first COVID19 diagnosis the same day as the US: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-testing-specialrep/special-report-how-korea-trounced-u-s-in-race-to-test-people-for-coronavirus-idUSKBN2153BW https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-testin... That needs to be become a social and political norm everywhere, not just the Asian countries that have faced a widespread outbreak before.

JamesBarney 7y ago
Yeah maybe it'll be in place for next time. But this looks to be about a once in a century event. It happened in 1917 and happening now. I doubt we'll handle it better in 2115.
- mbreese 7y ago
  I don’t know about that. A lot of lessons were learned in the 1918 flu pandemic that were applied here. For example, I’ve seen the comparison between the Philadelphia and St Louis responses multiple times in how governments were reacting. I’m sure there will be lessons here too. The difference in response of between countries is one obvious comparison. But I think another lesson will be how the virus spread globally. With this virus, we have much more information about how the virus was able to spread globally so quickly.
  - JamesBarney 7y ago
    I've seen the Philadelphia versus St. Louis response, and I guess that may have informed a couple of decisions. But I think we already knew large gatherings are bad when a pandemic is afoot. Any other examples?
- SkyMarshal 7y ago
  The rate of these things will likely accelerate now that the world is far more interconnected. We’ve had a few scares already - SARS, MERS, Ebola 2014. This is the first one that really went global, but probably won’t be the last for another hundred years.
  - JamesBarney 7y ago
    I don't think the lack of pandemics on the scale of the coronavirus/spanish flu for the last 100 years has been a lack of connectivity. The coronavirus would have played out the same in the 40s as today, except it probably would have been worse in the 1940's. The reasons we haven't had one in 100 years is we haven't had the right virus. Now will we have another in the next 100 years? I don't think anyone knows what the base rate for 1918/coronavirus style viruses are, but there is no reason to think it will happen more frequently than the last 100.
tomp 7y ago
> overreact early, quickly and briefly People were worried that overreacting (in particular if the outbreak fizzled out, in which case any reaction would have been an overreaction) would damage the economy. Personally, I viewed that as a positive - a decently resilient economy would absorb such short-term shocks without any long-term issues. Easiest way to force-create such an economy? Stress tests (c.f. Netflix’s Chaos Monkey). If governments overreacted 1-2 times every year, people (travellers) and companies (supply chains) would get used to occasional flight blockade, border closure, discontinuity and disruption. We’d build a much more anti-fragile world.
- SkyMarshal 7y ago
  Great idea, 100% agree. Let’s Chaos Monkey all the things, not just Netflix. > Personally, I viewed that as a positive - a decently resilient economy would absorb such short-term shocks without any long-term issues. That’s my sense of it too. The markets may fall in the short term, but as soon as the outbreak is stopped, roughly a month later, the markets will recover most or all of their losses. Politicians so afraid of any stock market fall that they try to minimize the problem instead of treating the root of it are more likely to cause an even bigger market collapse.
  - NotSammyHagar 7y ago
    Yes, it's terrible that politicians in the us at least were doing their utmost to say this isn't a real problem because they didn't want to hurt the stock market and impact their re-election changes. But there's another side to testing things to failure in the real world, people can die. There are vulnerable people of every stripe. Unlike me they may barely get enough food, barely be able to pay that apt that depends on people going to a restaurant, barely have a way to get their medical care. Most people aren't as fortunate as us computer programmers. I can get a job in a few days, even with the corona virus, not true of restaurant workers. And even some of us in the "programmer class" are struggling. Some stress testing is good, but how to do it without killing the vulnerable.
    - TeMPOraL 7y ago
koonsolo 7y ago
I agree with you. A few days ago I made the statement that Covid19 is probably the best thing that could have happened to humanity. People were already warning us years ago about a pontential pandemic and its impact (including Bill Gates), but we all ignored it. A real pandemic seemed to be the only way to teach us. So I'm really happy for all of us that it's this moderate one, because it could have been a lot worse.
pacala 7y ago
> test extensively You can't manage what you can't measure. To this date, I have seen no reliable data on how fast the disease spreads, or how dangerous it actually is. Testing only 'people with shortness of breath and high fever for more than 4 days' is so biased it's not even funny. There could be 10x or even 100x more people with milder symptoms that are never considered for testing. Reporting '10% of people tested die' is also very misleading, since we only tested people with severe symptoms in the first place. We can poll 5 times a week for the chances of Biden or Sanders or Warren to become Trump's challenger in fall. Perhaps we could also perform randomized tests every week and get a better sense of the shape of the danger we're facing. Yes, testing for coronavirus is more expensive than calling a phone number, but shutting down the country indefinitely is orders of magnitude more expensive.
- garmaine 7y ago
  There is extremely good data from South Korea where extensive testing is performed.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]

JamesBarney 7y ago

Yeah maybe it'll be in place for next time. But this looks to be about a once in a century event. It happened in 1917 and happening now. I doubt we'll handle it better in 2115.

mbreese 7y ago
I don’t know about that. A lot of lessons were learned in the 1918 flu pandemic that were applied here. For example, I’ve seen the comparison between the Philadelphia and St Louis responses multiple times in how governments were reacting. I’m sure there will be lessons here too. The difference in response of between countries is one obvious comparison. But I think another lesson will be how the virus spread globally. With this virus, we have much more information about how the virus was able to spread globally so quickly.
- JamesBarney 7y ago
  I've seen the Philadelphia versus St. Louis response, and I guess that may have informed a couple of decisions. But I think we already knew large gatherings are bad when a pandemic is afoot. Any other examples?
SkyMarshal 7y ago
The rate of these things will likely accelerate now that the world is far more interconnected. We’ve had a few scares already - SARS, MERS, Ebola 2014. This is the first one that really went global, but probably won’t be the last for another hundred years.
- JamesBarney 7y ago
  I don't think the lack of pandemics on the scale of the coronavirus/spanish flu for the last 100 years has been a lack of connectivity. The coronavirus would have played out the same in the 40s as today, except it probably would have been worse in the 1940's. The reasons we haven't had one in 100 years is we haven't had the right virus. Now will we have another in the next 100 years? I don't think anyone knows what the base rate for 1918/coronavirus style viruses are, but there is no reason to think it will happen more frequently than the last 100.

tomp 7y ago

> overreact early, quickly and briefly People were worried that overreacting (in particular if the outbreak fizzled out, in which case any reaction would have been an overreaction) would damage the economy. Personally, I viewed that as a positive - a decently resilient economy would absorb such short-term shocks without any long-term issues. Easiest way to force-create such an economy? Stress tests (c.f. Netflix’s Chaos Monkey). If governments overreacted 1-2 times every year, people (travellers) and companies (supply chains) would get used to occasional flight blockade, border closure, discontinuity and disruption. We’d build a much more anti-fragile world.

SkyMarshal 7y ago
Great idea, 100% agree. Let’s Chaos Monkey all the things, not just Netflix. > Personally, I viewed that as a positive - a decently resilient economy would absorb such short-term shocks without any long-term issues. That’s my sense of it too. The markets may fall in the short term, but as soon as the outbreak is stopped, roughly a month later, the markets will recover most or all of their losses. Politicians so afraid of any stock market fall that they try to minimize the problem instead of treating the root of it are more likely to cause an even bigger market collapse.
- NotSammyHagar 7y ago
  Yes, it's terrible that politicians in the us at least were doing their utmost to say this isn't a real problem because they didn't want to hurt the stock market and impact their re-election changes. But there's another side to testing things to failure in the real world, people can die. There are vulnerable people of every stripe. Unlike me they may barely get enough food, barely be able to pay that apt that depends on people going to a restaurant, barely have a way to get their medical care. Most people aren't as fortunate as us computer programmers. I can get a job in a few days, even with the corona virus, not true of restaurant workers. And even some of us in the "programmer class" are struggling. Some stress testing is good, but how to do it without killing the vulnerable.
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago

koonsolo 7y ago

I agree with you. A few days ago I made the statement that Covid19 is probably the best thing that could have happened to humanity. People were already warning us years ago about a pontential pandemic and its impact (including Bill Gates), but we all ignored it. A real pandemic seemed to be the only way to teach us. So I'm really happy for all of us that it's this moderate one, because it could have been a lot worse.

pacala 7y ago

> test extensively You can't manage what you can't measure. To this date, I have seen no reliable data on how fast the disease spreads, or how dangerous it actually is. Testing only 'people with shortness of breath and high fever for more than 4 days' is so biased it's not even funny. There could be 10x or even 100x more people with milder symptoms that are never considered for testing. Reporting '10% of people tested die' is also very misleading, since we only tested people with severe symptoms in the first place. We can poll 5 times a week for the chances of Biden or Sanders or Warren to become Trump's challenger in fall. Perhaps we could also perform randomized tests every week and get a better sense of the shape of the danger we're facing. Yes, testing for coronavirus is more expensive than calling a phone number, but shutting down the country indefinitely is orders of magnitude more expensive.

garmaine 7y ago
There is extremely good data from South Korea where extensive testing is performed.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]