[forgotmyhnacc]

I've been hearing about modern JavaScript development revolutionizing "everything" for the past 8 years. So, can someone name me any significant impact it made on figuring out what to do about the recent epidemic? If not, I think it's worth reflecting on what value we get out of the technology that sucked up so much of our intellectual, financial and computational resources.

[gambler]

This is a nonsensical response on two levels.

First, you're missing the obvious fact that the response to this pandemic is largely dictated by data processing. People are modeling the spread of the virus, trying to make predictions about the optimal policy, trying to figure out infection rates without full testing and evaluating promising drugs. All of those things relate to modeling and data analysis. Deep learning was touted to revolutionize exactly those two things.

Second, web technologies are making an obvious impact by allowing (some, many) people to stay in touch, stay informed, keep working and buy stuff without exposing themselves to crowded places. This constitutes visible and significant positive impact.