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It's common in times of crisis to dwell on "what could we have done to prevent this?" or "what could we do better"? There are many positive actions also taking

It's common in times of crisis to dwell on "what could we have done to prevent this?" or "what could we do better"? There are many positive actions also taking place. Not to mention brave front-liners who are helping managing this to the best of their abilities. No one could have predicted the magnitude of this. The best time to plant a tree was 30 years ago. The next best time is now.

ceejayoz 7y ago
> No one could have predicted the magnitude of this. Public health experts all over the world have predicted the magnitude of this sort of thing for decades, and this particular virus for months. We have plenty of historical examples of pandemics to reference. Hell, Bill Gates himself gave a TED talk in 2015 about exactly this: https://www.geekwire.com/2020/bill-gates-warned-us-covid-19-like-pandemic-watch-ted-talk-2015/ https://www.geekwire.com/2020/bill-gates-warned-us-covid-19-... > “If anything kills over 10 million people in the next few decades, it’s likely to be a highly infectious virus rather than a war,” Gates said during the Ted Talk. “Not missiles, but microbes.”
- TearsInTheRain 7y ago
  > Public health experts all over the world have predicted the magnitude of this sort of thing for decades That reminds me of all of the finance experts that have been predicting a major asset bubble pop for the last 7 years.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
beamatronic 7y ago
It is not true that “no one could have predicted this” since myself and other have been discussing exactly this since mid January.
Invictus0 7y ago
Lots of people predicted this and the tools we needed to prevent it were in place just a few years ago: not to mention we had over a month of warning by just observing the situation in China. We should definitely dwell on why we were so unprepared for this.
LargeWu 7y ago
> No one could have predicted the magnitude of this. People did predict the magnitude of this, and it was ignored, repeatedly, which is why it got out of control in the first place.
deleted 7y ago
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shock-value 7y ago
> No one could have predicted the magnitude of this. Anyone who was paying attention to what was going on at ground-level in China in January could see this coming. It's the lack of testing at that time up through February that caused us (speaking as someone from the U.S.) to follow Italy's trajectory (or worse) rather than South Korea's. And no one is disparaging those at the front lines who are doing their best to mitigate this very very bad situation.
rrss 7y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimson_Contagion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimson_Contagion https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthelper/6824-2019-10-key-findings-and-after/05bd797500ea55be0724/optimized/full.pdf https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthelper/6824-2019-10-key-fin... > In the exercise scenario, forcasting gives a 90% change that the pandemic will be of very high severity, with 110 million forecasted illnesses, 7.7 million forecasted hospitalizations, and 586,000 deaths in the U.S. alone. > During the exercise, a significant topic of concern centered around the inadequaces of existing executive branch and statutory authorities to provide HHS with the requisite mechanisms to serve successfully as the lead federal agency in response to an influenza pandemic.

ceejayoz 7y ago

> No one could have predicted the magnitude of this. Public health experts all over the world have predicted the magnitude of this sort of thing for decades, and this particular virus for months. We have plenty of historical examples of pandemics to reference. Hell, Bill Gates himself gave a TED talk in 2015 about exactly this: https://www.geekwire.com/2020/bill-gates-warned-us-covid-19-like-pandemic-watch-ted-talk-2015/ https://www.geekwire.com/2020/bill-gates-warned-us-covid-19-... > “If anything kills over 10 million people in the next few decades, it’s likely to be a highly infectious virus rather than a war,” Gates said during the Ted Talk. “Not missiles, but microbes.”

TearsInTheRain 7y ago
> Public health experts all over the world have predicted the magnitude of this sort of thing for decades That reminds me of all of the finance experts that have been predicting a major asset bubble pop for the last 7 years.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

beamatronic 7y ago

It is not true that “no one could have predicted this” since myself and other have been discussing exactly this since mid January.

Invictus0 7y ago

Lots of people predicted this and the tools we needed to prevent it were in place just a few years ago: not to mention we had over a month of warning by just observing the situation in China. We should definitely dwell on why we were so unprepared for this.

LargeWu 7y ago

> No one could have predicted the magnitude of this. People did predict the magnitude of this, and it was ignored, repeatedly, which is why it got out of control in the first place.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

shock-value 7y ago

> No one could have predicted the magnitude of this. Anyone who was paying attention to what was going on at ground-level in China in January could see this coming. It's the lack of testing at that time up through February that caused us (speaking as someone from the U.S.) to follow Italy's trajectory (or worse) rather than South Korea's. And no one is disparaging those at the front lines who are doing their best to mitigate this very very bad situation.

rrss 7y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimson_Contagion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimson_Contagion https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthelper/6824-2019-10-key-findings-and-after/05bd797500ea55be0724/optimized/full.pdf https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthelper/6824-2019-10-key-fin... > In the exercise scenario, forcasting gives a 90% change that the pandemic will be of very high severity, with 110 million forecasted illnesses, 7.7 million forecasted hospitalizations, and 586,000 deaths in the U.S. alone. > During the exercise, a significant topic of concern centered around the inadequaces of existing executive branch and statutory authorities to provide HHS with the requisite mechanisms to serve successfully as the lead federal agency in response to an influenza pandemic.