We literally don't. SARS-CoV-2019 isn't some kind of novel deadly supervirus. It's pretty much the kind of virus that has been predicted for years to cause a p

We literally don't. SARS-CoV-2019 isn't some kind of novel deadly supervirus. It's pretty much the kind of virus that has been predicted for years to cause a pandemic eventually. Yet most of the world was woefully underprepared because we didn't take the risk seriously. Yes, it's good to know where the virus originated and if it was caused by a lab containment breach it's important for the international community to be able to learn from the mistakes. But that won't prevent the next pandemic and it won't help us deal with the next pandemic when it happens. Climate change has already been predicted to make future pandemics more likely and more frequent. Prevention is important, yes, but crisis management is much more important. As members of an IT-centric community HNers should know that "just don't make mistakes" is not a good strategy for dealing with bugs or incidents. China seems to have the situation somewhat under control following the initial catastrophic outbreak. Some other countries, especially in Asia (e.g. Vietnam), have also successfully managed the pandemic despite having close ties to China in general and the Wuhan region in particular. The common thread seems to be ruthlessly fact-based policies (e.g. no early "dialing back" of lockdowns) and free access to testing, vaccinations and general support (e.g. food) while under quarantine. The countries currently hit the worst either simply failed to act at all or (like Germany) kept riding the R=1.0 edge by going constantly back and forth out of a fear for "the economy" (despite epidemiologists and economists explicitly warning against this).