windwalker wrote:look at the time line. what the WHO said "its not human transferable" based on reports from China.
Then look at when the the time the travel restriction enacted, which many at the time
felt was the wrong move.
...
Be that as it may, once the trend line is understood...we will know if mitigation efforts were enough
or in time
I have no idea when exactly WHO said that. I tried to Google it just now. I did not find anything. But regardless of when they said that, by January, it was common knowledge that this was 10x as fatal as the common flu and vastly more contagious. But this is my personal timeline:
January 18
I flew from China to America. About a week later, it was already so bad that China had decided to extend the holiday in order to limit transmission. At that point in time, Trump was still on TV making jokes about it. He was calling it a Democratic hoax.
January 27
My wife tells me to consider extending my time with family a couple days because I don't have to get back to work till Feb 3. Thankfully, I decide not to and fly home on the 28th, as originally planned.
January 30
Everyone on the plane had masks. I forgot my mask back in LA (not a surgical mask, just a standard Chinese style winter mask). The airline (Cathay Pacific) gives me a mask and asks me to pleas wear it for the flight. When I arrive in Xi'an, there is an extra long customs line because they have to take our temperature and we have to fill out special COVID related questionnaires. I take cab home and we end up spending nearly 2 hours at a checkpoint. I have to provide passport ID, name, etc for a notebook the cab driver has, and again at the checkpoint, where people in hazmat suits are spraying down the cars with disinfectants and interviewing people before they let us into Xi'an.
Feb 1
I get notice from work that we will actually be staying at home another week. The US bans travel from China. Many flights from the into China are cancelled. I thank god I made it back to China in time.
Feb 3
I get notice from work that actually it will be 2 weeks, but we will work remotely. So they set up virtual desktops for us to work from. Trump is still claiming this is a hoax and is on TV saying that when the weather warms up it will disappear "like a miracle".
Feb 17
I return to work, but we all have to sign in to a special app where we report if we have symptom, have been in contact with anyone from Wuhan, etc. At work, we all wait in line at the gate, spaced 1 meter apart, get our temp taken and are issues a special tag for our lanyards indicating we have been cleared before we can enter the office. No one is allowed in without a surgical mask. Every Monday, all employees are issued a 10-pack of masks. There is a guy in a hazmat suit spraying down all vehicles as they enter the campus. The cafeteria is now take out only and you can only buy pre-packged box lunches. Underground parking is not longer available.
Feb 18
The market starts tanking, but I haven't noticed yet. It's still bouncing up and down a bit.
Feb 19 (I think)
I call my brother in LA to talk about what it's like, and he puts a friend on the phone who says he thinks China is the safest place in the world at that time because the government is taking it so seriously. Also, he says when it gets to the US, we are fucked, because we have not taken any protective measures. He says he thinks lots of people will get sick and the market will tank. I sleep on it, and the next day open a margin account.
Feb 20
I liquidate some crypto I have and use the funds to start shorting the market. The US still has not taken any serious action. Trump still says it's a hoax and a lot of pointless measures are taken to try an buoy the stock market. Each time, the market surges briefly but then crashed harder the next day.
If you or any here feel the response was not right
would be very interested in what you or others would have done differently.
I would have listened to the experts. I would have ramped up production of surgical masks and promoting social distancing on TV. I would have been wearing a surgical mask on TV, like they were doing in China, to emphasize the seriousness. I would have cancelled political rallys and started talking about possibly locking down major cities so that it wouldn't be such a shock when it happened and people could stock up without freaking out and hording supplies. I would have been letting Dr. Fauci do the talking when speaking on the virus. I would have been pushing a natinwide educational campaign about the virus and working with industry to ramp up delivery services, and much more.
As I am not president, I could not do any of that. So what I did instead was short the stock market so I wouldn't get crushed by the super obviously looming financial disaster. After abandoning Facebook several years ago, I got back onto social media and started trying to bat down rumors and disinformation wherever I could. I came back to this forum for the same reason. I reached out to family to see what I could do, and to see if there was a way to plan for the expected period of unemployment for my family members in the restaurant industry. I donated money to
https://www.nokidhungry.org/ because a lot of kids rely on school lunch programs for food, and school lunches are not available when schools are closed.
So that's my timeline and what I would have done differently.
what can one say....
believe what you will
There was panic on Fox News, but no schools closed, no cities needed to be locked down, no hospitals were running out of supplies, and there were no runs on the national toilet paper supply.