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> You can convincingly say this in retrospect about any event that happened, after all, it happened; it can't be so improbable and someone somewhere inevitably

> You can convincingly say this in retrospect about any event that happened, after all, it happened; it can't be so improbable and someone somewhere inevitably warned about the risk. Before this pandemic people wouldn't care. Now it's happen people like you are still trying to justify it away. Well, if you'd spoken to any epidemiologist (and I have) they'd have warned this was coming. It was inevitable. Before: "nah, it won't happen". Now: "well, you can say anything in retrospect". This is the superpower of human stupidity, it can dismiss anything inconvenient.

grey-area 6y ago
I'm not attempting to justify or defend the US or the Chinese pandemic response to Coronavirus (both of which were awful). I'm saying it was not utterly predictable in the course of its spread. The extent of the spread would have surprised most people, including epidemiologists if you asked them in January - precisely because we have encountered very similar viruses before and managed to contain them - it was always a possibility, but was considered by most of the world a remote one. Indeed, epidemiologists and governments in many countries knew about the virus in February, but not all reacted appropriately as they'd seen many such warnings before and for previous viruses it was contained and not a risk. There's swine flu in humans in multiple locations in China at the moment and it is likely to evolve to jump human to human - are you personally preparing for it to spread in the US now? If not why not since its spread is, like coronavirus, inevitable? Human stupidity also lends itself to retrospective reframing of events as inevitable and easily predictable when they are neither - it's easy to say everyone knew what was coming when talking in retrospect and very hard to accurately asses risk or probability.
- throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
  > I'm not attempting to justify or defend... That's irrelevant > The extent of the spread would have surprised most people... But not epidemiologists. > precisely because we have encountered very similar viruses before and managed to contain them Epidemiologists knew it was coming, and knew one would escape the net. They knew it. I spoke to several personally during when this happened https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_swine_flu_pandemic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_swine_flu_pandemic and I started to listen. They knew it. Don't pretend otherwise. > If not why not since its spread is, like coronavirus, inevitable? So first you claim it's unpredictable, then you acknowledge it's inevitable. Keep your eyes shut and everything's going to be alright.

grey-area 6y ago

I'm not attempting to justify or defend the US or the Chinese pandemic response to Coronavirus (both of which were awful). I'm saying it was not utterly predictable in the course of its spread. The extent of the spread would have surprised most people, including epidemiologists if you asked them in January - precisely because we have encountered very similar viruses before and managed to contain them - it was always a possibility, but was considered by most of the world a remote one. Indeed, epidemiologists and governments in many countries knew about the virus in February, but not all reacted appropriately as they'd seen many such warnings before and for previous viruses it was contained and not a risk. There's swine flu in humans in multiple locations in China at the moment and it is likely to evolve to jump human to human - are you personally preparing for it to spread in the US now? If not why not since its spread is, like coronavirus, inevitable? Human stupidity also lends itself to retrospective reframing of events as inevitable and easily predictable when they are neither - it's easy to say everyone knew what was coming when talking in retrospect and very hard to accurately asses risk or probability.

throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
> I'm not attempting to justify or defend... That's irrelevant > The extent of the spread would have surprised most people... But not epidemiologists. > precisely because we have encountered very similar viruses before and managed to contain them Epidemiologists knew it was coming, and knew one would escape the net. They knew it. I spoke to several personally during when this happened https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_swine_flu_pandemic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_swine_flu_pandemic and I started to listen. They knew it. Don't pretend otherwise. > If not why not since its spread is, like coronavirus, inevitable? So first you claim it's unpredictable, then you acknowledge it's inevitable. Keep your eyes shut and everything's going to be alright.