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If we took those measures every time there was a 10% chance of a pandemic would we be better off overall? Honest question I don't know the answer. It's easy to

If we took those measures every time there was a 10% chance of a pandemic would we be better off overall? Honest question I don't know the answer. It's easy to say we should have acted sooner, but should we have also done more for ebola, zika, SARS, MERS etc in the US as well, even though those didn't end up having much of an impact here?

angry_octet 7y ago
We had this expectation that nothing was really important enough to interrupt international travel. Even as Hubei was put in lockdown the Chinese were allowing their citizens to travel the globe, including direct flights from Wuhan to international destinations, and applying extreme pressure on countries to not restrict their entry. Basically the system has too much delay to respond, even to a strong signal. Even significant local deaths in the US is not strong enough to change politics and media. If Ebola had broken out we would have had the same problem. I think we are stuck in a local maximum. It takes a significant push for the system to escape oscillating back to where we are.
- lonelappde 7y ago
  Ebola has an African name so I bet it would have panicked westerners into a stronger response if covid was called ebola.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  > Even as Hubei was put in lockdown the Chinese were allowing their citizens to travel the globe, including direct flights from Wuhan to international destinations What? I remember Hubei was shut down with airports, and the rest of the world had to scramble evac flights to retrieve their citizens from the area.
  - angry_octet 7y ago
    They announced the lockdown before it was put into effect, leading to a bomb burst of potential carriers escaping in the next 24H. Even after that, international commercial flights were allowed to depart.
    - TeMPOraL 7y ago
      Oh, so just like everyone else. I remember suggesting here and elsewhere that lockdowns should be announced on the spot, and quarantines should be applied retroactively. I.e. if at 18:00 the president/prime minister gets on air and announces a lockdown, that lockdown should be active from 18:00, and everyone coming into the country in the 14 days before the announcement should be quarantined. I remember being shouted down as suggesting something extremely undemocratic. After all, the law isn't supposed to work backwards (all the cases where it does notwithstanding).
      - angry_octet 7y ago
        At no point did I imply the Chinese were worse than anyone else at responding. I agree, the lockdown should be immediate, and exceptions should be publically documented -- 'incident 782: flight xyz with 10 pax was granted clearance to land as a medical transport flight, under authority of XYZ, regional medical coordinator'. I don't see requiring retroactive effect though -- just require those people to confine themselves and their co-habitants, and stand by to be contacted for contact tracing.
acqq 7y ago
> should we have also done more for ebola, zika, SARS, MERS etc in the US Obviously yes, and not only in the US. The complete lack of any preparation for this kind of events in most of the world is what makes this specific event so disastrous, and the extent of that disaster is going to be more visible only once everything settles -- we're still far from that.
- grahamburger 7y ago
  I honestly at least in US culture we'd end up with a 'boy who cried wolf' situation if we had tried to even encourage social distancing during past pandemic scares. If we had done that in the past when a pandemic didn't occur we would have had an even harder time getting people to take this one seriously, and it would likely have been worse.
  - meowface 7y ago
    Very unfortunate, but true, point. Most of those past ones were much more deadly and much less contagious for a variety of reasons, which played a role. Another silver lining is that this event might reduce the chance of future wolf-crying/false alarms occurring when we actually do need to take something seriously. It's certainly possible that an existing, or, more likely, new ebola/filovirus strain could become a pandemic, too, though. Hopefully we'd be able to spot it early enough. (And there are some vaccines, which may or may not work against a new strain.) And of course it could really be anything.

angry_octet 7y ago

We had this expectation that nothing was really important enough to interrupt international travel. Even as Hubei was put in lockdown the Chinese were allowing their citizens to travel the globe, including direct flights from Wuhan to international destinations, and applying extreme pressure on countries to not restrict their entry. Basically the system has too much delay to respond, even to a strong signal. Even significant local deaths in the US is not strong enough to change politics and media. If Ebola had broken out we would have had the same problem. I think we are stuck in a local maximum. It takes a significant push for the system to escape oscillating back to where we are.

lonelappde 7y ago
Ebola has an African name so I bet it would have panicked westerners into a stronger response if covid was called ebola.
TeMPOraL 7y ago
> Even as Hubei was put in lockdown the Chinese were allowing their citizens to travel the globe, including direct flights from Wuhan to international destinations What? I remember Hubei was shut down with airports, and the rest of the world had to scramble evac flights to retrieve their citizens from the area.
- angry_octet 7y ago
  They announced the lockdown before it was put into effect, leading to a bomb burst of potential carriers escaping in the next 24H. Even after that, international commercial flights were allowed to depart.
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    Oh, so just like everyone else. I remember suggesting here and elsewhere that lockdowns should be announced on the spot, and quarantines should be applied retroactively. I.e. if at 18:00 the president/prime minister gets on air and announces a lockdown, that lockdown should be active from 18:00, and everyone coming into the country in the 14 days before the announcement should be quarantined. I remember being shouted down as suggesting something extremely undemocratic. After all, the law isn't supposed to work backwards (all the cases where it does notwithstanding).
    - angry_octet 7y ago
      At no point did I imply the Chinese were worse than anyone else at responding. I agree, the lockdown should be immediate, and exceptions should be publically documented -- 'incident 782: flight xyz with 10 pax was granted clearance to land as a medical transport flight, under authority of XYZ, regional medical coordinator'. I don't see requiring retroactive effect though -- just require those people to confine themselves and their co-habitants, and stand by to be contacted for contact tracing.

acqq 7y ago

> should we have also done more for ebola, zika, SARS, MERS etc in the US Obviously yes, and not only in the US. The complete lack of any preparation for this kind of events in most of the world is what makes this specific event so disastrous, and the extent of that disaster is going to be more visible only once everything settles -- we're still far from that.

grahamburger 7y ago
I honestly at least in US culture we'd end up with a 'boy who cried wolf' situation if we had tried to even encourage social distancing during past pandemic scares. If we had done that in the past when a pandemic didn't occur we would have had an even harder time getting people to take this one seriously, and it would likely have been worse.
- meowface 7y ago
  Very unfortunate, but true, point. Most of those past ones were much more deadly and much less contagious for a variety of reasons, which played a role. Another silver lining is that this event might reduce the chance of future wolf-crying/false alarms occurring when we actually do need to take something seriously. It's certainly possible that an existing, or, more likely, new ebola/filovirus strain could become a pandemic, too, though. Hopefully we'd be able to spot it early enough. (And there are some vaccines, which may or may not work against a new strain.) And of course it could really be anything.