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> the second it was clear this was a global problem The problem is that the west has nobody in power with living memory of a pandemic. An unfortunate failing o

> the second it was clear this was a global problem The problem is that the west has nobody in power with living memory of a pandemic. An unfortunate failing of human cognition is that most humans discount that which they have no direct experience of. So it was never going to be clear to most people that this was a problem until we had waited way too long. I mean, most people can't be bothered to not spend everything they make when the last recession was 12 years ago, so what do we expect when there hasn't been a pandemic in the west in over 100 years...

SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
There have been multiple pandemics in living memory of ~all current world leaders, many of which killed millions.
- toasterlovin 7y ago
  What pandemics have people in the west directly experienced in living memory? As far as I am aware, all pandemics in recent memory have happened in Africa or Asia.
  - NikolaeVarius 7y ago
    AIDS, Swine Flu, probably MMR?
    - toasterlovin 7y ago
      AIDS: easily avoided MMR: easily avoided That leaves swine flu. According to this Wikipedia page about the 2009 flu pandemic (which is what the term “swine flu” references, as best as I can tell), worldwide fatalities are estimated at 575 thousand (upper bound) and worldwide infections are estimated at 700 million (lower bound). Given those numbers, the worst case fatality rate is 0.08%. Then there is this quote: > A follow-up study done in September 2010 showed that the risk of serious illness resulting from the 2009 H1N1 flu was no higher than that of the yearly seasonal flu. So my point remains: no one in the west had direct experience of a pandemic. Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic
      - NikolaeVarius 7y ago
        Wow, AIDS and MMR has not affected the western world. That's a new one.
        toasterlovin 7y ago
        That is not what I have said anywhere in this thread.
        NikolaeVarius 7y ago
        >> So my point remains: no one in the west had direct experience of a pandemic.
        toasterlovin 7y ago
        From Wikipedia (pandemic and epidemic entries): > A pandemic (from Greek πᾶν pan "all" and δῆμος demos "people") is a disease epidemic that has spread across a large region, for instance multiple continents, or worldwide. > An epidemic (from Greek ἐπί epi "upon or above" and δῆμος demos "people") is the rapid spread of disease to a large number of people in a given population within a short period of time. AIDS does not meet those definitions, unless you restrict “given population” to mean male homosexuals or recipients of blood transfusions.
        Retric 7y ago
        AIDS cases have been to every country in the world which easily satisfies as a pandemic. Epidemic is different with Covid19 not yet qualifying. What’s useful about separating the ideas is discovering the root cause. Scurvy used to be epidemic among sailers, making it easier to find the root cause and treatments. Highly localized diseases generally have a specific local cause.
        toasterlovin 7y ago
        AIDS has not spread very rapidly. It has taken nearly 4 decades to reach its current spread. Covid has the potential to infect most people in the span of 12-18 months. It’s categorically different. And AIDS is easily avoided!
  - SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
    In addition to AIDS, there were major American flu pandemics in 2009 and 1968. 1957 too, depending on how old you consider to be "living memory" - many federal leaders were teenagers at the time.
    - microcolonel 7y ago
      So basically nothing on this scale.
      - SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
        For years, all diagnosed AIDS patients were expected to die within 12 months. It wasn't spread as broadly, and the flu pandemics weren't as deadly, but the general concepts that pandemics can strike hard and fast were definitely within leaders' personal knowledge.
        toasterlovin 7y ago
        But you don’t have to shut down the economy to deal with AIDS because it’s sexually transmitted. That’s my point: the vast majority of people have never had to make serious changes to their behavior or lifestyle to avoid contagion before.
        SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
        That I agree with, but as far as I can tell the degree of measures we're trying to take are unprecedented even in non-living memory. School closures and public gathering bans, sure, but those measures happen pretty frequently during lesser scale outbreaks. If anyone tried to ban social calls during the Spanish Flu, I'm not aware of it.
        lisper 7y ago
        They didn't. That's why it killed tens of millions of people back when the global population was about 1/4 of what it is today, and mobility was much more constrained. No jets in 1918. The expected death toll from Covid, assuming an overall mortality rate of 1%, would be about 75 million people. So far the death toll worldwide is about 13,000. That's a big number, but only about 0.02% of the expected total without intervention.
  - pmorici 7y ago
    The closest thing that people in the US might have a living memory of is the polio epidemic in the US in 1952. [0] Granted anyone who is old enough to have lived through that and remember it is probably on lock down in a nursing home right about now. The people in power now would have been children around that time so who knows if it would have a made an impression on them. [0] https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2012/10/16/162670836/wiping-out-polio-how-the-u-s-snuffed-out-a-killer https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2012/10/16/1626708...
    - akiselev 7y ago
      Mitch Mcconnell, the person who sets the legislative agenda in the Senate, wrote this in his memoir: It’s one of my life’s great fortunes that Sister’s home was only about sixty miles from Warm Springs, Georgia, where President Franklin D. Roosevelt had established a polio treatment center and where he’d often travel to find relief from the polio that paralyzed him at the age of thirty-nine. My mother took me there every chance she had. The nurses would teach her how to perform exercises meant to rehabilitate my leg while also emphasizing her need to make me believe I could walk, even though I wasn’t allowed to. I bet it left an impression.
      - dhosek 7y ago
        Apparently not enough of one.
    - lazyasciiart 7y ago
      It made a huge impression on many children in the 50s still - there were still tens of thousands dying and being paralyzed each year until the late 50s, and by this point they were predominantly small children being affected. My parents are in their early 60s and they remember it well - when she was five her friend was partially paralyzed for life by it. https://www.historyofvaccines.org/content/us-polio-cases-1952-1962 https://www.historyofvaccines.org/content/us-polio-cases-195... had friends who died. They were given behavior restrictions.
      - deleted 7y ago
  - wbronitsky 7y ago
    Comments like this are exactly where HN fails the hardest right now. This is someone very strongly asserting that their ignorance should be listened to. It would be trivially easy to google the actual facts in this case, and yet this person chooses to instead to assert that ignorance is the better solution. I understand we aren’t supposed to get personal on HN, but people are causing the site to devolve, and we should hold these people accountable to try and fix the issue. Please use facts.
  - bsder 7y ago
    AIDS? Legionnaire's disease? People forget the panic these caused until they were understood. In addition, we have had some horrible flus over the years. 1994(ish) and 1977(ish) stick out in my mind. Anyone who says: "Oh, it's just a nasty flu" has never had a bad flu. I can't imagine being more sick than being stuck in bed for two solid weeks not wanting to move because it hurts so bad but you have to make yourself some food and then choke it down only to throw it up. And Covid-19 is WORSE THAT THAT! Holy hell, people, I'd do ANYTHING to avoid that.
    - jacquesm 7y ago
      I had a couple of weeks paralysis as a result of a bad flue in my teens. Scary as hell.
      - 1996 7y ago
        Guillan Barre syndrome (paralysis) can be seen after vaccines or viral infection
        jacquesm 7y ago
        Yes, but that usually lasts a lot longer. My stepdad had that and nearly died from it. Spent a long time in a ventilator and the remainder of his life in a wheelchair.
        navaati 7y ago
        Urgh, yet another auto-immune disease ? I really hope that a massive breakthrough in medical knowledge will happen regarding that general subject. Unfortunately the matter seems to be more complex than anything I, as a developer, can imagine…
  - onetimemanytime 7y ago
    >>As far as I am aware... Doesn't really matter what you are aware or not. USA and the major countries have thousands of people that do just that, monitor epidemics. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-nCoV/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-nCoV/index.html That's their job and they have ways to notify leadership. Other look out for steroids, others for hackers hacking power plants, others look out for terror threats and so on. It turns out that out intel services knew about this and its potential since January but civilian leader more or less ignored it. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/us-intelligence-reports-from-january-and-february-warned-about-a-likely-pandemic/2020/03/20/299d8cda-6ad5-11ea-b5f1-a5a804158597_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/us-intellig...
    - jacquesm 7y ago
      > It turns out that out intel services knew about this and its potential since January I would hope they knew about it since January because I knew about it since January and likely so did you. And since the beginning of February I've been warning people in ever more concrete terms. Here it was, right here on HN in January: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22146446 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22146446 There may be even older ones, for instance, this one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22000761 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22000761 Which linked to: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51047576 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51047576 which in turn links to: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-50984025 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-50984025 Which is the oldest western article I've been able to find. Are there older ones?
      - fragmede 7y ago
        On HN, the oldest I was able to find is https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21926713 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21926713 linking to https://www.dw.com/en/china-investigates-sars-like-virus-as-dozens-struck-by-pneumonia/a-51843861 https://www.dw.com/en/china-investigates-sars-like-virus-as-... from Jan 1st, which is 8 days earlier than your second link, but with only 3 points and zero comments, I'm not sure how much that counts. The BBC story that you linked to is from Jan 3rd, the AP had a story[1] on the 5th, so the public had opportunity to know about it in early January. I can't get Reddit's search to cooperate, so I can't say if there's an earlier mention there (plus Google's dates about Reddit don't agree with Reddit's). Wikipedia has an early timeline page with a lot of details.[2] Public statements were made on December 30th about pneumonia of unknown cause. If there had been a US pandemic response team, we could have started mobilizing December 30th. Hong Kong did. [1] https://apnews.com/7cfe53b9e7c7509c1f61c6c09e6fc4e6 https://apnews.com/7cfe53b9e7c7509c1f61c6c09e6fc4e6 [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_pandemic_in_November_2019_%E2%80%93_January_2020#17_November_2019 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_2019%E2%80%932...
  - ptero 7y ago
    I am pretty sure H1N1 (aka swine flu) was declared a worldwide pandemic by the WHO.
    - toasterlovin 7y ago
      Fatality rate similar to the normal flu.
      - toasterlovin 7y ago
        In Case you think I’m making this up, here’s what I said elsewhere in this thread: > According to this Wikipedia page about the 2009 flu pandemic (which is what the term “swine flu” references, as best as I can tell), worldwide fatalities are estimated at 575 thousand (upper bound) and worldwide infections are estimated at 700 million (lower bound). Given those numbers, the worst case fatality rate is 0.08%. Then there is this quote: > A follow-up study done in September 2010 showed that the risk of serious illness resulting from the 2009 H1N1 flu was no higher than that of the yearly seasonal flu. > Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic reply
      - Der_Einzige 7y ago
        Literally "just the flu bro"
      - throw9o8765 7y ago
        At the time it was happening, no one knew that. The media was comparing it to SARS.
        toasterlovin 7y ago
        Okay, but my original point is that nobody in the West has gone through something like what we’re going through. You’re actually making my point even stronger: not only has no one in the West ever actually lived through a pandemic that took a bunch of lives and requires societal level sacrifice, we’ve all had false alarms that have made us less likely to take potential pandemics seriously.
  - spodek 7y ago
    Obesity, according to this NIH document https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28292617 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28292617 on Pubmed: > Obesity pandemic: causes, consequences, and solutions-but do we have the will? > Abstract > Obesity has become pandemic owing to an obesogenic environment (inexpensive calorie dense food, technologies and structure of communities that reduce or replace physical activity, and inexpensive nonphysical entertainment) and excessive emphasis on low fat intake resulting in excessive intake of simple carbohydrates and sugar. . .
    - toasterlovin 7y ago
      Until we find an infectious cause of obesity, calling it an obesity pandemic is a rhetorical act it grounded in the widely accepted meaning of the word.
      - burfog 7y ago
        Wikipedia's page on Adenoviridae lists these human adenovirus types that cause obesity or adipogenesis: HAdV-A type 31; HAdV-C type 5; HAdV-D types 9, 36, 37 One of the references: Voss JD, Atkinson RL, Dhurandhar NV (November 2015). "Role of adenoviruses in obesity". Reviews in Medical Virology. 25 (6): https://zenodo.org/record/1229348 https://zenodo.org/record/1229348 So yes, obesity can be caused by contagious disease.
        toasterlovin 7y ago
        Obesity can be caused by a infectious disease is not the same thing as obesity, in general, being caused by an infectious disease. It would have to be caused by a contagious, in general, to be able to describe the widespread prevalence of obesity as a pandemic, since the term pandemic is concerned with infectious diseases.
      - gindely 7y ago
        A pandemic is a form of epidemic (according to Wikipedia's definition, which you have referred to). An epidemic is an outbreak of a disease (according to Wikipedia's definition, which you have referred to). A disease is a particular abnormal condition that negatively affects the structure or function of all or part of an organism, and that is not due to any immediate external injury... A disease may be caused by external factors such as pathogens or by internal dysfunctions. (according to Wikipedia's definition, which is included by link by its definition of epidemic). There is no requirement on the definition of epidemic that you have referred to that requires it to be infectious. Please pick a definition and stick to it. You want a pandemic to be a global outbreak of a disease to which the overwhelming majority of the population is susceptible and which is spread via a pathogen without physical contact. If there's an authority that uses that definition, find them and cite them. Otherwise please stick the definitions you've already cited and move on.
  - bogomipz 7y ago
    The HIV/AIDS pandemic, not only recent but also one of the most destructive in human history as well. [1] [1] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5531a1.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5531a1.htm
    - quickthrowman 7y ago
      Please explain how a disease transmitted by unprotected sex and IV drug use (once the blood supply was screened) is in any way comparable to an airborne illness. It’s not, the vast majority of western society (hell, eastern too) has never been at risk of contracting HIV/AIDS. The vast majority are at risk of COVID-19. HIV/AIDS is technically a pandemic, but not one that affects all populations/demographics. Completely different.
      - bogomipz 7y ago
        You do realize there was a time where HIV/AIDS wasn't at all understood right? HIV/AIDS is not "technically a pandemic" it is a pandemic period. Pandemic is a geographic relative term it does not need to to "affect all populations/demographics." That is not a qualification. That appears to be some something you made up. The role of epidemiology is the same whether something is a flu pandemic or some other disease. The reason Dr Deborah Birx is qualified in her current role is because of her research in the early days of the HIV/AIDs pandemic. Nobody is claiming she is not qualified because that wasn't a flu pandemic.
        toasterlovin 7y ago
        From another reply of mine in this thread: > AIDS is not a pandemic. Pandemic requires epidemic, which requires rapid spread in a short period of time. AIDS has been slow. Calling it a pandemic is, IMO, motivated by politics (it mostly affects male homosexuals and sub-Saharan Africans). Ctrl-F for my discussion elsewhere in this thread.
        bogomipz 7y ago
        So you're stating that AIDS was never an epidemic? Right. And that's based on your opinion I guess? Well there's actual facts too: "In late 1983, the global presence of the mysterious virus motivated European authorities and the WHO to classify the growing number of diagnoses as an epidemic. In addition to the outbreak in the U.S., patients with similar symptoms were documented in 15 European countries, 7 Latin American countries, Canada, Zaire, Haiti, Australia and Japan. Of particular concern was an outbreak in central Africa among heterosexual patients."[1] [1] https://www.publichealth.org/public-awareness/hiv-aids/origin-story/ https://www.publichealth.org/public-awareness/hiv-aids/origi...
  - nkohari 7y ago
    It was barely 10 years ago. Between April 2009 and April 2010, H1N1 (swine flu) sickened 60.8M people in the US alone. [0] [0] https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/2009-h1n1-pandemic.html https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/2009-h1n1-pandemi...
ajross 7y ago
OK, so... how does that explain Taiwan or Korea, who had the same "living memory" we do and managed to get this under control without breaking their health care systems? I mean, your point is true, but the lack of action wasn't the fault of the average citizen or their living memory. The decision-makers should have had access to better info, and of course they did. Doctors from China and Italy told us long ago that PPE equipment was a bottleneck. Epidemiologists could see what was going to happen with the rate of spread. Local health officials in states knew at the outset that they needed more tests. Hell, the federal government has a whole departmental center dedicated specifically to the control of disease; they've spent decades modeling out how to respond to crises like this. Yet... no decisions got made. That wasn't for a lack of "living memory of a pandemic".
- toasterlovin 7y ago
  Taiwan is ethnically Han, has lots of ties to mainland China, and is an island just if the Chinese coast. Korea is a peninsula attached to mainland China. They both had to deal with and care about SARS in a way that the west did not.
- klipt 7y ago
  > Taiwan or Korea, who had the same "living memory" we do They faced SARS, which never took off in the West.
  - icedata 7y ago
    There were 44 deaths in Canada https://globalnews.ca/news/6458609/looking-back-toronto-sars-outbreak/ https://globalnews.ca/news/6458609/looking-back-toronto-sars...
    - throw0101a 7y ago
      An interview with a team in Ontario, Canada that dealt with SARS, including the Minister of Health (Clement) at the time: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPOkpIc2Z7U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPOkpIc2Z7U
    - 7y ago
cma 7y ago
> The problem is that the west has nobody in power with living memory of a pandemic. Doesn't help that the WH pandemic response team was disbanded (fired/resigned and not replaced).
senderista 7y ago
The President, with unlimited access to the best public health advice in the world, has zero excuses.
- enraged_camel 7y ago
  Yep, the Intelligence Community was sounding the alarm back in January. By February, all IC reports to the president warned of an imminent pandemic threat. Trump of course downplayed it and ignored them. edit: yep, go ahead and downvote. i'm sure the truth hurts.
- gwright 7y ago
  This is wishful thinking. It is doubtful that there was even a concensus from public health officials 8-10 weeks ago. There are way too many people using what they know now to criticize decisions that were made 8 weeks ago when the information/evidence wasn't obvious. It still isn't clear to me if the severe economic shutdowns are going to not have secondary affects that are just as bad as the virus. I think we should all be a little more humble about what should have been done until we are on the other side of this crisis.
throw0101a 7y ago
> The problem is that the west has nobody in power with living memory of a pandemic. Irrelevant. It's why we have things like (history) books: so that we don't have to relive past events to learn from them and repeat every mistake done in the past. It's cheaper to learn from other people's mistakes than your own. The Trump Administration was specifically warned about pandemics before they even took power: > “Health officials warn that this could become the worst influenza pandemic since 1918,” Trump’s aides were told. Soon, they heard cases were popping up in California and Texas. > The briefing was intended to hammer home a new, terrifying reality facing the Trump administration, and the incoming president’s responsibility to protect Americans amid a crisis. But unlike the coronavirus pandemic currently ravaging the globe, this 2017 crisis didn’t really happen — it was among a handful of scenarios presented to Trump’s top aides as part of a legally required transition exercise with members of the outgoing administration of Barack Obama. * https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/16/trump-inauguration-warning-scenario-pandemic-132797 https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/16/trump-inauguration-... Trump could have done something between 4-6 weeks sooner per briefings in January: * https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/us-intelligence-reports-from-january-and-february-warned-about-a-likely-pandemic/2020/03/20/299d8cda-6ad5-11ea-b5f1-a5a804158597_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/us-intellig... When H1N1 appeared in April 2009 the response was swift and decisive: > The CDC's summary report[1] of the 2009 H1N1 pandemic outlines how tests were administered at the time. The virus was first detected in the US on April 15. The CDC informed the World Health Organization about initial cases April 18. A test to detect this strain of swine flu was developed by the CDC and cleared for use 10 days later, on April 28, and the CDC began shipping tests across the US and around the world on May 1. * https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/13/politics/fact-checking-trumps-claim-on-swine-flu-tests/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/13/politics/fact-checking-trumps... China's lack of transparency did not help matters: > The research also found that if interventions in the country could have been conducted one week, two weeks, or three weeks earlier, cases could have been reduced by 66 percent, 86 percent and 95 percent respectively – significantly limiting the geographical spread of the disease. However, if NPIs were conducted one week, two weeks, or three weeks later than they were, the number of cases may have shown a 3-fold, 7-fold, or 18-fold increase, respectively. * https://www.southampton.ac.uk/news/2020/03/covid-19-china.page https://www.southampton.ac.uk/news/2020/03/covid-19-china.pa... * Study: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.03.20029843v3 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.03.20029843v... But all the "technical" knowledge to do the right thing was there. There is nothing new to this situation that we didn't already understand from an epidemiological perspective.
avz 7y ago
> The problem is that the west has nobody in power with living memory of a pandemic. [...] there hasn't been a pandemic in the west in over 100 years... Recent counter-example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic_in_the_Unite... Key stats: * global cases: 700 million - 1.4 billion * global deaths: 150,000–575,000 * US cases: 60.8 million * US deaths: 12,469 A few more counter-examples can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics (Edit: added key stats)
- toasterlovin 7y ago
  Do the math on the death rate. Same as normal flu. Not the same thing as this pandemic.
  - throw9o8765 7y ago
    At the time, no one knew that. There was mass panic and surgical masks were also being bought out.
- devy 7y ago
  Also just to point out, for 2009 Swine flu pandemic, we had vaccines (effective 43%) and antiviral treatments can significantly help. This time since COVID-19 is a novel virus, we have nothing.
fma 7y ago
> So it was never going to be clear to most people that this was a problem until we had waited way too long. Sorry, but we knew it was serious. On January 25th, we closed down and evacuated the US consulate in Wuhan. That was 2 months ago. Unless by 'most people' you mean Trump and the Fox News audience.
- fma 7y ago
  FYI for the down voters, Fox News was up in denial till last week https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifKbwDf51bA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifKbwDf51bA
- gindely 7y ago
  The Trump administration greatly mishandled the crisis. There is a theory that Trump's mishandling of the crisis is somehow what sets the United States or the west as a whole apart from the wealthy liberal East Asian states of South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong. The problem with this theory, though, is that it doesn't explain why countries like Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and Australia all dragged their feet every step of the way. (At the beginning, Germany seemed to respond extremely well, but once it became epidemic in other countries, they gave up.) People were not tested if they showed signs of the disease; they were only tested if they were connected to a known case. Travel was not restricted till the disease was already present in the target markets. When travel was restricted, it was too often done on effectively a racist basis. If you're Chinese, you're banned. People acted as though we would somehow be immune from this disease since our political/health system/language is just so. In China and in the West, the response was always F-grade. Trump and the US deserve extra comment, but they are not the unique failures. It's the difference between 15 and 45. A huge difference, but a passing grade is 50.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
bogomipz 7y ago
>"The problem is that the west has nobody in power with living memory of a pandemic. An unfortunate failing of human cognition is that most humans discount that which they have no direct experience of." What about the HIV/AIDS pandemic? Lots of folks in the HHS have living memory of that. In fact Dr Debbie Birx the WH Coronavirus response coordinator has spent decades fighting on that front. And the CDC has a presence in 40 different counties through various partnerships and has had first hand experience with SARS, MERS, H1N1 and EBOLA.
- toasterlovin 7y ago
  AIDS is not a pandemic. Pandemic requires epidemic, which requires rapid spread in a short period of time. AIDS has been slow. Calling it a pandemic is, IMO, motivated by politics (it mostly affects male homosexuals and sub-Saharan Africans). Ctrl-F for my discussion elsewhere in this thread.
jonahbenton 7y ago
It is true that there is a lack of living memory but that has nothing to do with Americas delayed response. Trump and the GOP is the reason, full stop. There was understanding and plans and staff and machinery and the entire Democratic leadership at fed and state level saying very clearly starting in January that action was needed. GOP leadership was briefed in Jan and took action privately, while holding publicly to Trump line. US is led by a bully and sociopath, and the GOP has Stockholm syndrome. That is the reason.
- toasterlovin 7y ago
  > Trump and the GOP is the reason I live in a state that is about as blue as they come and our local politicians also failed to do anything until way after the horse was out of the barn.
nonbirithm 7y ago
I believe the next pandemic response after this one should better take into the sentiment that there is sometimes no good answer to viral outbreaks that does not tank the economy. This outbreak is a litmus test for the competency of many world leaderships. It's a sad fact that it takes a death toll in the course of a few months to cause it, but that's reality. Look at how wrong some very powerful people were in addressing the scale of the crisis. There is still a lot of unfounded optimism going around. This could potentially be highly damaging to their credibility. Maybe we will learn to be more pessimistic when it counts next time, prioritizing reality over individual liberty. Like other natural phenomena, viruses have no qualms about diplomatic red tape, the efficiency of medical supply manufacture, or personal belief. They will keep infecting regardless. What happens when another outbreak occurs, more deadly and/or transmissable than this one, when notions of social distancing become even less effective, and self-isolation is actually the only viable option to prevent mass deaths? Will our best-case manufacturing rate always be able to outstrip the infection rate enough, and if not how would we respond? There will probably still be many people that hang on to the belief that something can be done to save the economic structures underlying society, in the face of reality. Given even more dangerous diseases, at what point does this become false? I'm not hopeful that economic measures will always be able to solve economic crises without an economic cause, because nature doesn't care about economic models. If the only solution to prevent societal collapse in the future would be mandatory self-quarantine, regardless of whether or not we'd know this, will world leaders ever be prepared to make that call, and swiftly? This outbreak will probably not lead to the collapse of humanity in general. But with the mindset we currently have of never reacting until it's too late, which outbreak will become the one where we finally run out of options? I sincerely hope enough of the world has embedded this into their minds and will spread this memory to future generations, and be prepared, to be in time for the next, more severe crisis.
NicoJuicy 7y ago
Why would you need experience with a pandemic? The previous team of CDC made sure that Ebola didn't become one. They were pretty successful untill Trump wanted to put inexperienced "allies" in place.
gindely 7y ago
I think the problem is that the west has people in power with living memory of a pandemic - Swine Flu - which was widely criticised as a complete overreaction, to the point that there's no such category as an official pandemic any more. The reaction here was a significant counter-reaction to the swine flu overreaction.

SpicyLemonZest 7y ago

There have been multiple pandemics in living memory of ~all current world leaders, many of which killed millions.

toasterlovin 7y ago
What pandemics have people in the west directly experienced in living memory? As far as I am aware, all pandemics in recent memory have happened in Africa or Asia.
- NikolaeVarius 7y ago
  AIDS, Swine Flu, probably MMR?
  - toasterlovin 7y ago
    AIDS: easily avoided MMR: easily avoided That leaves swine flu. According to this Wikipedia page about the 2009 flu pandemic (which is what the term “swine flu” references, as best as I can tell), worldwide fatalities are estimated at 575 thousand (upper bound) and worldwide infections are estimated at 700 million (lower bound). Given those numbers, the worst case fatality rate is 0.08%. Then there is this quote: > A follow-up study done in September 2010 showed that the risk of serious illness resulting from the 2009 H1N1 flu was no higher than that of the yearly seasonal flu. So my point remains: no one in the west had direct experience of a pandemic. Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic
    - NikolaeVarius 7y ago
      Wow, AIDS and MMR has not affected the western world. That's a new one.
      - toasterlovin 7y ago
        That is not what I have said anywhere in this thread.
        NikolaeVarius 7y ago
        >> So my point remains: no one in the west had direct experience of a pandemic.
        toasterlovin 7y ago
        From Wikipedia (pandemic and epidemic entries): > A pandemic (from Greek πᾶν pan "all" and δῆμος demos "people") is a disease epidemic that has spread across a large region, for instance multiple continents, or worldwide. > An epidemic (from Greek ἐπί epi "upon or above" and δῆμος demos "people") is the rapid spread of disease to a large number of people in a given population within a short period of time. AIDS does not meet those definitions, unless you restrict “given population” to mean male homosexuals or recipients of blood transfusions.
        Retric 7y ago
        AIDS cases have been to every country in the world which easily satisfies as a pandemic. Epidemic is different with Covid19 not yet qualifying. What’s useful about separating the ideas is discovering the root cause. Scurvy used to be epidemic among sailers, making it easier to find the root cause and treatments. Highly localized diseases generally have a specific local cause.
        toasterlovin 7y ago
        AIDS has not spread very rapidly. It has taken nearly 4 decades to reach its current spread. Covid has the potential to infect most people in the span of 12-18 months. It’s categorically different. And AIDS is easily avoided!
- SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
  In addition to AIDS, there were major American flu pandemics in 2009 and 1968. 1957 too, depending on how old you consider to be "living memory" - many federal leaders were teenagers at the time.
  - microcolonel 7y ago
    So basically nothing on this scale.
    - SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
      For years, all diagnosed AIDS patients were expected to die within 12 months. It wasn't spread as broadly, and the flu pandemics weren't as deadly, but the general concepts that pandemics can strike hard and fast were definitely within leaders' personal knowledge.
      - toasterlovin 7y ago
        But you don’t have to shut down the economy to deal with AIDS because it’s sexually transmitted. That’s my point: the vast majority of people have never had to make serious changes to their behavior or lifestyle to avoid contagion before.
        SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
        That I agree with, but as far as I can tell the degree of measures we're trying to take are unprecedented even in non-living memory. School closures and public gathering bans, sure, but those measures happen pretty frequently during lesser scale outbreaks. If anyone tried to ban social calls during the Spanish Flu, I'm not aware of it.
        lisper 7y ago
        They didn't. That's why it killed tens of millions of people back when the global population was about 1/4 of what it is today, and mobility was much more constrained. No jets in 1918. The expected death toll from Covid, assuming an overall mortality rate of 1%, would be about 75 million people. So far the death toll worldwide is about 13,000. That's a big number, but only about 0.02% of the expected total without intervention.
- pmorici 7y ago
  The closest thing that people in the US might have a living memory of is the polio epidemic in the US in 1952. [0] Granted anyone who is old enough to have lived through that and remember it is probably on lock down in a nursing home right about now. The people in power now would have been children around that time so who knows if it would have a made an impression on them. [0] https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2012/10/16/162670836/wiping-out-polio-how-the-u-s-snuffed-out-a-killer https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2012/10/16/1626708...
  - akiselev 7y ago
    Mitch Mcconnell, the person who sets the legislative agenda in the Senate, wrote this in his memoir: It’s one of my life’s great fortunes that Sister’s home was only about sixty miles from Warm Springs, Georgia, where President Franklin D. Roosevelt had established a polio treatment center and where he’d often travel to find relief from the polio that paralyzed him at the age of thirty-nine. My mother took me there every chance she had. The nurses would teach her how to perform exercises meant to rehabilitate my leg while also emphasizing her need to make me believe I could walk, even though I wasn’t allowed to. I bet it left an impression.
    - dhosek 7y ago
      Apparently not enough of one.
  - lazyasciiart 7y ago
    It made a huge impression on many children in the 50s still - there were still tens of thousands dying and being paralyzed each year until the late 50s, and by this point they were predominantly small children being affected. My parents are in their early 60s and they remember it well - when she was five her friend was partially paralyzed for life by it. https://www.historyofvaccines.org/content/us-polio-cases-1952-1962 https://www.historyofvaccines.org/content/us-polio-cases-195... had friends who died. They were given behavior restrictions.
    - deleted 7y ago
- wbronitsky 7y ago
  Comments like this are exactly where HN fails the hardest right now. This is someone very strongly asserting that their ignorance should be listened to. It would be trivially easy to google the actual facts in this case, and yet this person chooses to instead to assert that ignorance is the better solution. I understand we aren’t supposed to get personal on HN, but people are causing the site to devolve, and we should hold these people accountable to try and fix the issue. Please use facts.
- bsder 7y ago
  AIDS? Legionnaire's disease? People forget the panic these caused until they were understood. In addition, we have had some horrible flus over the years. 1994(ish) and 1977(ish) stick out in my mind. Anyone who says: "Oh, it's just a nasty flu" has never had a bad flu. I can't imagine being more sick than being stuck in bed for two solid weeks not wanting to move because it hurts so bad but you have to make yourself some food and then choke it down only to throw it up. And Covid-19 is WORSE THAT THAT! Holy hell, people, I'd do ANYTHING to avoid that.
  - jacquesm 7y ago
    I had a couple of weeks paralysis as a result of a bad flue in my teens. Scary as hell.
    - 1996 7y ago
      Guillan Barre syndrome (paralysis) can be seen after vaccines or viral infection
      - jacquesm 7y ago
        Yes, but that usually lasts a lot longer. My stepdad had that and nearly died from it. Spent a long time in a ventilator and the remainder of his life in a wheelchair.
      - navaati 7y ago
        Urgh, yet another auto-immune disease ? I really hope that a massive breakthrough in medical knowledge will happen regarding that general subject. Unfortunately the matter seems to be more complex than anything I, as a developer, can imagine…
- onetimemanytime 7y ago
  >>As far as I am aware... Doesn't really matter what you are aware or not. USA and the major countries have thousands of people that do just that, monitor epidemics. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-nCoV/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-nCoV/index.html That's their job and they have ways to notify leadership. Other look out for steroids, others for hackers hacking power plants, others look out for terror threats and so on. It turns out that out intel services knew about this and its potential since January but civilian leader more or less ignored it. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/us-intelligence-reports-from-january-and-february-warned-about-a-likely-pandemic/2020/03/20/299d8cda-6ad5-11ea-b5f1-a5a804158597_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/us-intellig...
  - jacquesm 7y ago
    > It turns out that out intel services knew about this and its potential since January I would hope they knew about it since January because I knew about it since January and likely so did you. And since the beginning of February I've been warning people in ever more concrete terms. Here it was, right here on HN in January: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22146446 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22146446 There may be even older ones, for instance, this one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22000761 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22000761 Which linked to: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51047576 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51047576 which in turn links to: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-50984025 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-50984025 Which is the oldest western article I've been able to find. Are there older ones?
    - fragmede 7y ago
      On HN, the oldest I was able to find is https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21926713 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21926713 linking to https://www.dw.com/en/china-investigates-sars-like-virus-as-dozens-struck-by-pneumonia/a-51843861 https://www.dw.com/en/china-investigates-sars-like-virus-as-... from Jan 1st, which is 8 days earlier than your second link, but with only 3 points and zero comments, I'm not sure how much that counts. The BBC story that you linked to is from Jan 3rd, the AP had a story[1] on the 5th, so the public had opportunity to know about it in early January. I can't get Reddit's search to cooperate, so I can't say if there's an earlier mention there (plus Google's dates about Reddit don't agree with Reddit's). Wikipedia has an early timeline page with a lot of details.[2] Public statements were made on December 30th about pneumonia of unknown cause. If there had been a US pandemic response team, we could have started mobilizing December 30th. Hong Kong did. [1] https://apnews.com/7cfe53b9e7c7509c1f61c6c09e6fc4e6 https://apnews.com/7cfe53b9e7c7509c1f61c6c09e6fc4e6 [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_pandemic_in_November_2019_%E2%80%93_January_2020#17_November_2019 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_2019%E2%80%932...
- ptero 7y ago
  I am pretty sure H1N1 (aka swine flu) was declared a worldwide pandemic by the WHO.
  - toasterlovin 7y ago
    Fatality rate similar to the normal flu.
    - toasterlovin 7y ago
      In Case you think I’m making this up, here’s what I said elsewhere in this thread: > According to this Wikipedia page about the 2009 flu pandemic (which is what the term “swine flu” references, as best as I can tell), worldwide fatalities are estimated at 575 thousand (upper bound) and worldwide infections are estimated at 700 million (lower bound). Given those numbers, the worst case fatality rate is 0.08%. Then there is this quote: > A follow-up study done in September 2010 showed that the risk of serious illness resulting from the 2009 H1N1 flu was no higher than that of the yearly seasonal flu. > Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic reply
    - Der_Einzige 7y ago
      Literally "just the flu bro"
    - throw9o8765 7y ago
      At the time it was happening, no one knew that. The media was comparing it to SARS.
      - toasterlovin 7y ago
        Okay, but my original point is that nobody in the West has gone through something like what we’re going through. You’re actually making my point even stronger: not only has no one in the West ever actually lived through a pandemic that took a bunch of lives and requires societal level sacrifice, we’ve all had false alarms that have made us less likely to take potential pandemics seriously.
- spodek 7y ago
  Obesity, according to this NIH document https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28292617 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28292617 on Pubmed: > Obesity pandemic: causes, consequences, and solutions-but do we have the will? > Abstract > Obesity has become pandemic owing to an obesogenic environment (inexpensive calorie dense food, technologies and structure of communities that reduce or replace physical activity, and inexpensive nonphysical entertainment) and excessive emphasis on low fat intake resulting in excessive intake of simple carbohydrates and sugar. . .
  - toasterlovin 7y ago
    Until we find an infectious cause of obesity, calling it an obesity pandemic is a rhetorical act it grounded in the widely accepted meaning of the word.
    - burfog 7y ago
      Wikipedia's page on Adenoviridae lists these human adenovirus types that cause obesity or adipogenesis: HAdV-A type 31; HAdV-C type 5; HAdV-D types 9, 36, 37 One of the references: Voss JD, Atkinson RL, Dhurandhar NV (November 2015). "Role of adenoviruses in obesity". Reviews in Medical Virology. 25 (6): https://zenodo.org/record/1229348 https://zenodo.org/record/1229348 So yes, obesity can be caused by contagious disease.
      - toasterlovin 7y ago
        Obesity can be caused by a infectious disease is not the same thing as obesity, in general, being caused by an infectious disease. It would have to be caused by a contagious, in general, to be able to describe the widespread prevalence of obesity as a pandemic, since the term pandemic is concerned with infectious diseases.
    - gindely 7y ago
      A pandemic is a form of epidemic (according to Wikipedia's definition, which you have referred to). An epidemic is an outbreak of a disease (according to Wikipedia's definition, which you have referred to). A disease is a particular abnormal condition that negatively affects the structure or function of all or part of an organism, and that is not due to any immediate external injury... A disease may be caused by external factors such as pathogens or by internal dysfunctions. (according to Wikipedia's definition, which is included by link by its definition of epidemic). There is no requirement on the definition of epidemic that you have referred to that requires it to be infectious. Please pick a definition and stick to it. You want a pandemic to be a global outbreak of a disease to which the overwhelming majority of the population is susceptible and which is spread via a pathogen without physical contact. If there's an authority that uses that definition, find them and cite them. Otherwise please stick the definitions you've already cited and move on.
- bogomipz 7y ago
  The HIV/AIDS pandemic, not only recent but also one of the most destructive in human history as well. [1] [1] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5531a1.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5531a1.htm
  - quickthrowman 7y ago
    Please explain how a disease transmitted by unprotected sex and IV drug use (once the blood supply was screened) is in any way comparable to an airborne illness. It’s not, the vast majority of western society (hell, eastern too) has never been at risk of contracting HIV/AIDS. The vast majority are at risk of COVID-19. HIV/AIDS is technically a pandemic, but not one that affects all populations/demographics. Completely different.
    - bogomipz 7y ago
      You do realize there was a time where HIV/AIDS wasn't at all understood right? HIV/AIDS is not "technically a pandemic" it is a pandemic period. Pandemic is a geographic relative term it does not need to to "affect all populations/demographics." That is not a qualification. That appears to be some something you made up. The role of epidemiology is the same whether something is a flu pandemic or some other disease. The reason Dr Deborah Birx is qualified in her current role is because of her research in the early days of the HIV/AIDs pandemic. Nobody is claiming she is not qualified because that wasn't a flu pandemic.
      - toasterlovin 7y ago
        From another reply of mine in this thread: > AIDS is not a pandemic. Pandemic requires epidemic, which requires rapid spread in a short period of time. AIDS has been slow. Calling it a pandemic is, IMO, motivated by politics (it mostly affects male homosexuals and sub-Saharan Africans). Ctrl-F for my discussion elsewhere in this thread.
        bogomipz 7y ago
        So you're stating that AIDS was never an epidemic? Right. And that's based on your opinion I guess? Well there's actual facts too: "In late 1983, the global presence of the mysterious virus motivated European authorities and the WHO to classify the growing number of diagnoses as an epidemic. In addition to the outbreak in the U.S., patients with similar symptoms were documented in 15 European countries, 7 Latin American countries, Canada, Zaire, Haiti, Australia and Japan. Of particular concern was an outbreak in central Africa among heterosexual patients."[1] [1] https://www.publichealth.org/public-awareness/hiv-aids/origin-story/ https://www.publichealth.org/public-awareness/hiv-aids/origi...
- nkohari 7y ago
  It was barely 10 years ago. Between April 2009 and April 2010, H1N1 (swine flu) sickened 60.8M people in the US alone. [0] [0] https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/2009-h1n1-pandemic.html https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/2009-h1n1-pandemi...

ajross 7y ago

OK, so... how does that explain Taiwan or Korea, who had the same "living memory" we do and managed to get this under control without breaking their health care systems? I mean, your point is true, but the lack of action wasn't the fault of the average citizen or their living memory. The decision-makers should have had access to better info, and of course they did. Doctors from China and Italy told us long ago that PPE equipment was a bottleneck. Epidemiologists could see what was going to happen with the rate of spread. Local health officials in states knew at the outset that they needed more tests. Hell, the federal government has a whole departmental center dedicated specifically to the control of disease; they've spent decades modeling out how to respond to crises like this. Yet... no decisions got made. That wasn't for a lack of "living memory of a pandemic".

toasterlovin 7y ago
Taiwan is ethnically Han, has lots of ties to mainland China, and is an island just if the Chinese coast. Korea is a peninsula attached to mainland China. They both had to deal with and care about SARS in a way that the west did not.
klipt 7y ago
> Taiwan or Korea, who had the same "living memory" we do They faced SARS, which never took off in the West.
- icedata 7y ago
  There were 44 deaths in Canada https://globalnews.ca/news/6458609/looking-back-toronto-sars-outbreak/ https://globalnews.ca/news/6458609/looking-back-toronto-sars...
  - throw0101a 7y ago
    An interview with a team in Ontario, Canada that dealt with SARS, including the Minister of Health (Clement) at the time: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPOkpIc2Z7U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPOkpIc2Z7U
  - 7y ago

cma 7y ago

> The problem is that the west has nobody in power with living memory of a pandemic. Doesn't help that the WH pandemic response team was disbanded (fired/resigned and not replaced).

senderista 7y ago

The President, with unlimited access to the best public health advice in the world, has zero excuses.

enraged_camel 7y ago
Yep, the Intelligence Community was sounding the alarm back in January. By February, all IC reports to the president warned of an imminent pandemic threat. Trump of course downplayed it and ignored them. edit: yep, go ahead and downvote. i'm sure the truth hurts.
gwright 7y ago
This is wishful thinking. It is doubtful that there was even a concensus from public health officials 8-10 weeks ago. There are way too many people using what they know now to criticize decisions that were made 8 weeks ago when the information/evidence wasn't obvious. It still isn't clear to me if the severe economic shutdowns are going to not have secondary affects that are just as bad as the virus. I think we should all be a little more humble about what should have been done until we are on the other side of this crisis.

throw0101a 7y ago

> The problem is that the west has nobody in power with living memory of a pandemic. Irrelevant. It's why we have things like (history) books: so that we don't have to relive past events to learn from them and repeat every mistake done in the past. It's cheaper to learn from other people's mistakes than your own. The Trump Administration was specifically warned about pandemics before they even took power: > “Health officials warn that this could become the worst influenza pandemic since 1918,” Trump’s aides were told. Soon, they heard cases were popping up in California and Texas. > The briefing was intended to hammer home a new, terrifying reality facing the Trump administration, and the incoming president’s responsibility to protect Americans amid a crisis. But unlike the coronavirus pandemic currently ravaging the globe, this 2017 crisis didn’t really happen — it was among a handful of scenarios presented to Trump’s top aides as part of a legally required transition exercise with members of the outgoing administration of Barack Obama. * https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/16/trump-inauguration-warning-scenario-pandemic-132797 https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/16/trump-inauguration-... Trump could have done something between 4-6 weeks sooner per briefings in January: * https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/us-intelligence-reports-from-january-and-february-warned-about-a-likely-pandemic/2020/03/20/299d8cda-6ad5-11ea-b5f1-a5a804158597_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/us-intellig... When H1N1 appeared in April 2009 the response was swift and decisive: > The CDC's summary report[1] of the 2009 H1N1 pandemic outlines how tests were administered at the time. The virus was first detected in the US on April 15. The CDC informed the World Health Organization about initial cases April 18. A test to detect this strain of swine flu was developed by the CDC and cleared for use 10 days later, on April 28, and the CDC began shipping tests across the US and around the world on May 1. * https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/13/politics/fact-checking-trumps-claim-on-swine-flu-tests/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/13/politics/fact-checking-trumps... China's lack of transparency did not help matters: > The research also found that if interventions in the country could have been conducted one week, two weeks, or three weeks earlier, cases could have been reduced by 66 percent, 86 percent and 95 percent respectively – significantly limiting the geographical spread of the disease. However, if NPIs were conducted one week, two weeks, or three weeks later than they were, the number of cases may have shown a 3-fold, 7-fold, or 18-fold increase, respectively. * https://www.southampton.ac.uk/news/2020/03/covid-19-china.page https://www.southampton.ac.uk/news/2020/03/covid-19-china.pa... * Study: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.03.20029843v3 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.03.20029843v... But all the "technical" knowledge to do the right thing was there. There is nothing new to this situation that we didn't already understand from an epidemiological perspective.

avz 7y ago

> The problem is that the west has nobody in power with living memory of a pandemic. [...] there hasn't been a pandemic in the west in over 100 years... Recent counter-example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic_in_the_Unite... Key stats: * global cases: 700 million - 1.4 billion * global deaths: 150,000–575,000 * US cases: 60.8 million * US deaths: 12,469 A few more counter-examples can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics (Edit: added key stats)

toasterlovin 7y ago
Do the math on the death rate. Same as normal flu. Not the same thing as this pandemic.
- throw9o8765 7y ago
  At the time, no one knew that. There was mass panic and surgical masks were also being bought out.
devy 7y ago
Also just to point out, for 2009 Swine flu pandemic, we had vaccines (effective 43%) and antiviral treatments can significantly help. This time since COVID-19 is a novel virus, we have nothing.

fma 7y ago

> So it was never going to be clear to most people that this was a problem until we had waited way too long. Sorry, but we knew it was serious. On January 25th, we closed down and evacuated the US consulate in Wuhan. That was 2 months ago. Unless by 'most people' you mean Trump and the Fox News audience.

fma 7y ago
FYI for the down voters, Fox News was up in denial till last week https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifKbwDf51bA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifKbwDf51bA
gindely 7y ago
The Trump administration greatly mishandled the crisis. There is a theory that Trump's mishandling of the crisis is somehow what sets the United States or the west as a whole apart from the wealthy liberal East Asian states of South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong. The problem with this theory, though, is that it doesn't explain why countries like Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and Australia all dragged their feet every step of the way. (At the beginning, Germany seemed to respond extremely well, but once it became epidemic in other countries, they gave up.) People were not tested if they showed signs of the disease; they were only tested if they were connected to a known case. Travel was not restricted till the disease was already present in the target markets. When travel was restricted, it was too often done on effectively a racist basis. If you're Chinese, you're banned. People acted as though we would somehow be immune from this disease since our political/health system/language is just so. In China and in the West, the response was always F-grade. Trump and the US deserve extra comment, but they are not the unique failures. It's the difference between 15 and 45. A huge difference, but a passing grade is 50.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

bogomipz 7y ago

>"The problem is that the west has nobody in power with living memory of a pandemic. An unfortunate failing of human cognition is that most humans discount that which they have no direct experience of." What about the HIV/AIDS pandemic? Lots of folks in the HHS have living memory of that. In fact Dr Debbie Birx the WH Coronavirus response coordinator has spent decades fighting on that front. And the CDC has a presence in 40 different counties through various partnerships and has had first hand experience with SARS, MERS, H1N1 and EBOLA.

toasterlovin 7y ago
AIDS is not a pandemic. Pandemic requires epidemic, which requires rapid spread in a short period of time. AIDS has been slow. Calling it a pandemic is, IMO, motivated by politics (it mostly affects male homosexuals and sub-Saharan Africans). Ctrl-F for my discussion elsewhere in this thread.

jonahbenton 7y ago

It is true that there is a lack of living memory but that has nothing to do with Americas delayed response. Trump and the GOP is the reason, full stop. There was understanding and plans and staff and machinery and the entire Democratic leadership at fed and state level saying very clearly starting in January that action was needed. GOP leadership was briefed in Jan and took action privately, while holding publicly to Trump line. US is led by a bully and sociopath, and the GOP has Stockholm syndrome. That is the reason.

toasterlovin 7y ago
> Trump and the GOP is the reason I live in a state that is about as blue as they come and our local politicians also failed to do anything until way after the horse was out of the barn.

nonbirithm 7y ago

I believe the next pandemic response after this one should better take into the sentiment that there is sometimes no good answer to viral outbreaks that does not tank the economy. This outbreak is a litmus test for the competency of many world leaderships. It's a sad fact that it takes a death toll in the course of a few months to cause it, but that's reality. Look at how wrong some very powerful people were in addressing the scale of the crisis. There is still a lot of unfounded optimism going around. This could potentially be highly damaging to their credibility. Maybe we will learn to be more pessimistic when it counts next time, prioritizing reality over individual liberty. Like other natural phenomena, viruses have no qualms about diplomatic red tape, the efficiency of medical supply manufacture, or personal belief. They will keep infecting regardless. What happens when another outbreak occurs, more deadly and/or transmissable than this one, when notions of social distancing become even less effective, and self-isolation is actually the only viable option to prevent mass deaths? Will our best-case manufacturing rate always be able to outstrip the infection rate enough, and if not how would we respond? There will probably still be many people that hang on to the belief that something can be done to save the economic structures underlying society, in the face of reality. Given even more dangerous diseases, at what point does this become false? I'm not hopeful that economic measures will always be able to solve economic crises without an economic cause, because nature doesn't care about economic models. If the only solution to prevent societal collapse in the future would be mandatory self-quarantine, regardless of whether or not we'd know this, will world leaders ever be prepared to make that call, and swiftly? This outbreak will probably not lead to the collapse of humanity in general. But with the mindset we currently have of never reacting until it's too late, which outbreak will become the one where we finally run out of options? I sincerely hope enough of the world has embedded this into their minds and will spread this memory to future generations, and be prepared, to be in time for the next, more severe crisis.

NicoJuicy 7y ago

Why would you need experience with a pandemic? The previous team of CDC made sure that Ebola didn't become one. They were pretty successful untill Trump wanted to put inexperienced "allies" in place.

gindely 7y ago

I think the problem is that the west has people in power with living memory of a pandemic - Swine Flu - which was widely criticised as a complete overreaction, to the point that there's no such category as an official pandemic any more. The reaction here was a significant counter-reaction to the swine flu overreaction.