My initial reaction was to disagree with you, Bruce, because it is very possible to err to far on the side of better-safe-than-sorry, and some folks will soon be asking for a better-safe-than-sorry two-week lockdown every November or December.
But I've come around to agree with you. A two-weeks-to-end-this was feasible, with full information from China, in December 2019 or even January 2020 but March 2020 was way too late, as you say. Two weeks became two years and one could argue we prolonged precious few lives by locking down and coercing injections because we waiting and watched.
I agree with you that the lab is the most defensible source, that Fauci knew about it, and that his failure to recommend containing it earlier was an act of saving face.
Serious new pandemic outbreaks are a rare event. The SARS reviews made the argument that it was worth wasting money and causing people unnecessary convenience nine times out of ten by 'overreacting' to a new and unknown pathogen, for the simple reason that the tenth one could be a super-bug capable of causing a massive number of deaths with extensive economic damage. I think the logic behind that position is sound. Certainly it worked for the countries that took that approach with COVID.
Ten thousand Americans had died of COVID by the end of July 2020. Virtually all those deaths could have all been avoided. (Even if half of them died 'with' rather than 'from' COVID, that's still 5,000 unnecessary deaths.) If we'd had even another three months before the pandemic spun out of control, we'd have been much better prepared. We'd have had far better data. I suspect we'd have been far less prone to panic.
The other issue is that traditional pandemic control measures of travel restrictions, quarantines, and contact tracing affect only the tiny chunk of the population that is at highest risk. It's not like lock-downs that inconvenience the entire population, including those at minimal risk.
My initial reaction was to disagree with you, Bruce, because it is very possible to err to far on the side of better-safe-than-sorry, and some folks will soon be asking for a better-safe-than-sorry two-week lockdown every November or December.
But I've come around to agree with you. A two-weeks-to-end-this was feasible, with full information from China, in December 2019 or even January 2020 but March 2020 was way too late, as you say. Two weeks became two years and one could argue we prolonged precious few lives by locking down and coercing injections because we waiting and watched.
I agree with you that the lab is the most defensible source, that Fauci knew about it, and that his failure to recommend containing it earlier was an act of saving face.
Serious new pandemic outbreaks are a rare event. The SARS reviews made the argument that it was worth wasting money and causing people unnecessary convenience nine times out of ten by 'overreacting' to a new and unknown pathogen, for the simple reason that the tenth one could be a super-bug capable of causing a massive number of deaths with extensive economic damage. I think the logic behind that position is sound. Certainly it worked for the countries that took that approach with COVID.
Ten thousand Americans had died of COVID by the end of July 2020. Virtually all those deaths could have all been avoided. (Even if half of them died 'with' rather than 'from' COVID, that's still 5,000 unnecessary deaths.) If we'd had even another three months before the pandemic spun out of control, we'd have been much better prepared. We'd have had far better data. I suspect we'd have been far less prone to panic.
The other issue is that traditional pandemic control measures of travel restrictions, quarantines, and contact tracing affect only the tiny chunk of the population that is at highest risk. It's not like lock-downs that inconvenience the entire population, including those at minimal risk.