
For experts who study coronaviruses, a grim vindication - sohkamyung
https://undark.org/2020/06/08/for-experts-who-study-coronaviruses-a-grim-vindication/
======
vikramkr
Retrospectively you can justify anything. But the coronavirus outbreak
happening now is not proof of the idea that the optimal thing to do in 2010
was to invest in coronavirus research- that could have still been the correct
decision based off the probabilities of an outbreak. Just about every virus
has a virologist convinced it's the next big one. In recent times next big
ones have been the flu (kind of expected), HIV (basically out of nowhere),
COVID (we could have done better, but if you'd asked me to bet I'd have bet on
avian influenza/H5N1 since that's already dangerously close to becoming an
outbreak and has been on radars for a while). Ig a super virulent hantavirus
emerged, are those that studied those viruses noe "vindicates" as to pandemic
threat? They infect humans and cause small outbreaks too.

~~~
csours
See also Black Swans. If you call out 200 possible Black Swan events, and 1
comes true, people will call you a genius and ignore the 199 that didn't
happen.

~~~
claudeganon
Pandemics are not black swans though. They occur at predictable intervals.
Taleb explicitly says they’re not black swans in his work.

~~~
ls612
The lockdowns though and their scale were totally black swans with no
precedent

~~~
ashtonkem
No precedent within living memory is not the same as no precedent.

Aside from 1918, the quarantine of entire cities and counties has been a
common tactic to control plagues from bubonic to yellow fever. There are even
reports from the Black Death of some Italian cities delivering food to
peasants to encourage them to stay home.

~~~
noir_lord
Not to mention the draconian quarantine of merchant vessels entering/leaving
ports.

30+ days mandatory quarantine wasn't unusual.

The word Quarantine traces it's roots back to quarantino (40 days) and those
laws where passed all over the place from (what we know) the 14th Century.

~~~
ashtonkem
With the expectation that if the ship is infected, _everyone on it will die_ ,
and no medical help will be given. Pretty brutal by modern standards.

~~~
im3w1l
It's not like they had a lot of medical help to provide in those days anyway.

~~~
noir_lord
Leeches.

Headache to much blood, leeches.

Stomach ache, too much blood to the stomach, leeches.

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Novukus
The comments here are weirdly anti-science. There've been plenty of
discussions about coronaviruses being a potential threat over the years. Given
the proximity of bats to major population centres in China, I don't see how
anybody could say "Well, it's so unlikely that research is unnecessary". All I
see here is modern economic systems and scientific institutions failing
because there isn't an immediate benefit, yet again, despite there being clear
signs of a threat.

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emiliobumachar
Others have pointed out that other threats may have seemed just as likely, and
that hindsight may be essential to pick out this one.

Now that we have hindsight about _that_ , maybe the lesson is that it's worth
it to find the money to research the hell out of every top-20 or top-200
pandemic threats. Spray-and-pray.

Another pandemic will come. With luck, it will be another century from now.
With bad luck, it will be next year. We must be better prepared.

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SkyBelow
People are very apt to justify or condemn a decision based off of the result
and not based off of the data available at the time the decision was made.
Only one of these helps us make better decisions going forward.

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29athrowaway
It almost certainly went like this:

    
    
        Scientist: "Boss, it's only time for a disaster to happen"
    
        Policymaker: "Will it happen now?"
    
        Scientist: "No, but it will happen"
    
        Policymaker: "OK, then, remind me when it happens"

~~~
nikanj
Scientist: "So we'll do nothing until it does?"

Policymaker: "No, but rest assured we'll blame you when it does happen"

~~~
29athrowaway
Or one of these: "we did not know", "we did not have enough data to make a
decision", "thanks to all the heroes at the frontlines", "we are doing a great
job", "it's the previous guy's fault".

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christkv
Actually I think focusing on understanding the human immune system would be
just as important. Know the immune system and how it really works and you can
prepare therapeutic defenses against new viruses because you understand what
they do to the body and counteract their effect or diminish it.

I would like to see a Manhattan project level funded research program on the
human immune system.

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KCUOJJQJ
I think the fear of a terror virus was so great that a virus that didn't have
such a bad quality was mentally turned into a virus that has this bad quality.

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antibuddy
Does nobody question the premise that Sars-Cov-19 is actually a big threat? At
least the current incarnation seems rather tame. The panic over it however is
rather real.

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NotSammyHagar
I'll give you an honest answer, but well, it's obvious. Yes, it's a big
threat, it's clear if you pay attention. It's killed more than 100k people, a
lot more than an annual flue. It's a horrible death with many people not being
able to be around their loved ones. There are lots more deaths not counted as
covid-19, because they didn't get tested after death. If we look at total
deaths vs normal years we are undercounting.

How many sr citizen homes do we need to wipe out 1/3 the population in a month
or two before its a serious issue? Mortality rate in the us for people who
have it tested via test is 5.7% -
[https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality](https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality).

~~~
antibuddy
Heinsberg study suggests a mortality rate of about 0.36%. This is high, but
not "a big threat". Given that with 0.36% and 15% infection spread in the
general population (like flu) you look at ca 162k deaths in the US.

It is not even close 5.7% mortality. If it would be that lethal you would look
already at over one million deaths.

Sweden is a good example of a country without a lot of counter measures and we
see that it will end in the realm of 0.36% lethality (5,4k deaths).
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_Sweden](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_Sweden)

~~~
nikanj
Sweden regrets their choices [https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-
updates/2020/0...](https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-
updates/2020/06/03/868567924/swedens-coronavirus-response-chief-acknowledges-
potential-for-improvement)

~~~
antibuddy
That's not exactly what the article is saying tho. Also it doesn't change the
0.36% mortality rate and I might add the high age median of around 80. So we
will likely see a lower average mortality afterwards.

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outside1234
Remember, a large enough group of monkeys with keyboards will produce
Shakespeare given enough time.

Or a broken clock is right twice a day.

~~~
take_a_breath
I never hear this sentiment on HN when it comes to writing code. Only the
other, less-noble job classes.

~~~
albntomat0
I definitely understood the parent comment differently than you did.

My read of it is that they are criticizing those predicting low probability
events, and then cherrypicking the predictions that turned out correct as
misunderstood predictive geniuses.

A similar event in tech is the analysis of a potential AI singularity event,
which comes up plenty often. We'll only be able to tell who is right in
retrospect, and plenty of folks call each other quacks over that.

