um, I'd argue respectfully that "unprecedentedly dangerous" is the phrase approaching the delusional. when this whole thing started, I did what any self respe

um, I'd argue respectfully that "unprecedentedly dangerous" is the phrase approaching the delusional. when this whole thing started, I did what any self respecting analyst would do: try to calculate the numbers and calculate the likely outcomes and risks (primarily to my own family). And I kept arriving at the conclusion: it's statistically bad in the sense of spread and infectiousness, but as a virus and comparative lethality it's not THAT bad. The main danger was from responses/strongly compressed infection timing, and assuming you didn't overreact and your health system held out, if your family were in their 50s or younger and healthy, existentially it wasn't much worse than the flu (and for the youngest, possibly even less dangerous). but what I was scared of was the human response. Because it targets the old and infirm, and because they largely control most wealth and power, and because we largely don't have mature ways of dealing with mortality in common cultural discourse, and because a lot of our countries have become increasingly partisan, I figured the response would probably be bad/chaotic/ and have lots of badly targeted over-reactions, unintended consequences, and probably a lot of name calling, fear mongering and virtue signalling. our media has just gone crazy. 6 months later (and in the lockdown in Melbourne), I stand by most of my initial judgements. One problem locally (and maybe NZ shares this problem, I dunno), it's that the trump/Johnson swing to the right/populism left the opposition (we have Labor in power locally too, so the opposition is conservative) being relatively flirting with anti-science and anti-int tellectualism as well as general juvenile behaviour and responses, so even though one might not fully support local actions (I don't fully support the lockdown extents in both Melbourne or NZ long term), there isn't really a viable political alternative presented either.