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"How much should we worry about this?" Risk assessment. Hands up who anticipated SARS-CoVid-2 -> covid-19? ... OK who mitigated it with a fortuitous insuranc

"How much should we worry about this?" Risk assessment. Hands up who anticipated SARS-CoVid-2 -> covid-19? ... OK who mitigated it with a fortuitous insurance policy? ... OK who simply happened to have enough cash in the bank by accident? Now look at the grid. Any grid.

avianlyric 7y ago
Somewhat amazingly the US government anticipated a COVID-19 type pandemic, and even prepared for it. Unfortunately a number of different failures of government resulted in that preparation being completely squandered. Leaving the US completely unprepared when it actually happened. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/12/opinion/ventilators-coronavirus.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/12/opinion/ventilators-coron...
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
maxerickson 7y ago
Multiple world governments anticipated a novel respiratory virus. Especially post the first SARS. For whatever reason, the US managed to take the idea seriously for decades and then not really be prepared once it actually happened.
- harikb 7y ago
  Some states like CA were prepared, but the federal government can’t leave these things for states to fend for themselves. At some point somebody somewhere will try to save a few million to make a budget match. Federal government burned 10 times that amount, probably the same day, on military [1] https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-03-27/coronavirus-california-mobile-hospitals-ventilators https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-03-27/coronavi...
  - redis_mlc 7y ago
    > Some states like CA were prepared CA has a stockpile that was allowed to deteoriate due to budget cuts. So the initial impression was that we weren't prepared, but then we reassessed the situation and gave away at least 500 ventilators to other states as we felt more confident. Luckily, Bay Area and LA residents travel to China a lot, so we already had substantial herd immunity by February 1. You can see that in the Santa Clara dashboard, which never showed an emergency situation: https://www.sccgov.org/sites/covid19/Pages/dashboard.aspx#hospital https://www.sccgov.org/sites/covid19/Pages/dashboard.aspx#ho... Not the "sky is falling" narrative that HN and the press keep trumpeting, is it?
    - glangdale 7y ago
      > Luckily, Bay Area and LA residents travel to China a lot, so we already had substantial herd immunity by February 1. Ummn, what? This sounds like an entirely made up factoid, and certainly isn't supported by the dashboard. The estimates of how many people in a population have to have had COVID-19 are very high. Even if you buy the Stanford study, which is itself controversial, the estimated numbers for how many have been exposed to the virus are still an order of magnitude below what you'd need for herd immunity.
      - dannyw 7y ago
        It’s not just the Stanford study: antibody studies everywhere, from New York to Sweden to Italy are showing similar results. The “criticism” on those studies are more hypothetical and not universal. It’s like “this study could be wrong because X”, and “that study could be wrong because Y”, but there are more than enough now to draw statistical conclusions. The difference between 20% (NYC antibody positives) and herd immunity estimates (75%) is not an order of magnitude. No, we don’t have herd immunity, but enough that the rate of infection is slowing. And actually, at this rate we’ll get to herd immunity before a vaccine is found. Maybe the lockdown breakers are ironically the ones that (1) saves the economy (2) ends the corona pandemic.
        macintux 7y ago
        > but enough that the rate of infection is slowing. You don’t think that has something to do with the fact we drove our economy off a cliff by asking (or forcing) people to stay home?
  - masonic 7y ago
    Some states like CA were prepared By what definition of the word was CA "prepared"? There was an improved pandemic infrastructure provided under Schwarzenegger, but that was completely gutted by Brown and left there by Newsom.
    - harikb 7y ago
      my wording was terse, but I quote the same story as the point you are making (the la times link). my point was that CA did what it could, given budget constraint. If federal had bailed out CA with that little money to keep the stockpile maintained, we would have been in much better shape nationwide.

avianlyric 7y ago

Somewhat amazingly the US government anticipated a COVID-19 type pandemic, and even prepared for it. Unfortunately a number of different failures of government resulted in that preparation being completely squandered. Leaving the US completely unprepared when it actually happened. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/12/opinion/ventilators-coronavirus.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/12/opinion/ventilators-coron...

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

maxerickson 7y ago

Multiple world governments anticipated a novel respiratory virus. Especially post the first SARS. For whatever reason, the US managed to take the idea seriously for decades and then not really be prepared once it actually happened.

harikb 7y ago
Some states like CA were prepared, but the federal government can’t leave these things for states to fend for themselves. At some point somebody somewhere will try to save a few million to make a budget match. Federal government burned 10 times that amount, probably the same day, on military [1] https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-03-27/coronavirus-california-mobile-hospitals-ventilators https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-03-27/coronavi...
- redis_mlc 7y ago
  > Some states like CA were prepared CA has a stockpile that was allowed to deteoriate due to budget cuts. So the initial impression was that we weren't prepared, but then we reassessed the situation and gave away at least 500 ventilators to other states as we felt more confident. Luckily, Bay Area and LA residents travel to China a lot, so we already had substantial herd immunity by February 1. You can see that in the Santa Clara dashboard, which never showed an emergency situation: https://www.sccgov.org/sites/covid19/Pages/dashboard.aspx#hospital https://www.sccgov.org/sites/covid19/Pages/dashboard.aspx#ho... Not the "sky is falling" narrative that HN and the press keep trumpeting, is it?
  - glangdale 7y ago
    > Luckily, Bay Area and LA residents travel to China a lot, so we already had substantial herd immunity by February 1. Ummn, what? This sounds like an entirely made up factoid, and certainly isn't supported by the dashboard. The estimates of how many people in a population have to have had COVID-19 are very high. Even if you buy the Stanford study, which is itself controversial, the estimated numbers for how many have been exposed to the virus are still an order of magnitude below what you'd need for herd immunity.
    - dannyw 7y ago
      It’s not just the Stanford study: antibody studies everywhere, from New York to Sweden to Italy are showing similar results. The “criticism” on those studies are more hypothetical and not universal. It’s like “this study could be wrong because X”, and “that study could be wrong because Y”, but there are more than enough now to draw statistical conclusions. The difference between 20% (NYC antibody positives) and herd immunity estimates (75%) is not an order of magnitude. No, we don’t have herd immunity, but enough that the rate of infection is slowing. And actually, at this rate we’ll get to herd immunity before a vaccine is found. Maybe the lockdown breakers are ironically the ones that (1) saves the economy (2) ends the corona pandemic.
      - macintux 7y ago
        > but enough that the rate of infection is slowing. You don’t think that has something to do with the fact we drove our economy off a cliff by asking (or forcing) people to stay home?
- masonic 7y ago
  Some states like CA were prepared By what definition of the word was CA "prepared"? There was an improved pandemic infrastructure provided under Schwarzenegger, but that was completely gutted by Brown and left there by Newsom.
  - harikb 7y ago
    my wording was terse, but I quote the same story as the point you are making (the la times link). my point was that CA did what it could, given budget constraint. If federal had bailed out CA with that little money to keep the stockpile maintained, we would have been in much better shape nationwide.