[tsimionescu]

The COVID-19 epidemic is not a black swan event. It is a foreseeable event with a computable probability of happening. Epidemics are recurring events throughout human history, including in the present day. Sure, the recurrence is low, especially for global pandemics, but you can be almost absolutely sure that within the next 100 years there will be another one.

In fact, even in the black swan book, they are explicitly given as an example of rare but NOT black swan-style events.

Point being, governments and corporations should have epidemic plans. It should never come as a surprise. Sure, a small mom-an-pop place or a start-up can't really prepare, but a corporation the size of Amazon should have an epidemic plan and reserves for that. Not having one would simply be irresponsible, both to shareholders and to employees.

Edit to add: airlines, restaurant, and hotel chains should have been the most aware of this. If they do not have plans for resisting a 2-6 month epidemic when business is shut down, then they are simply gambling on government intervention. There is almost 0% probability of operating one of these companies for 50 years and not having to battle at least a local epidemic in a large country.

[makomk]

Here's how this would go. The UK government did have epidemic plans, including a stockpile of PPE. Here's how the BBC described that stockpile: "Coronavirus: UK failed to stockpile crucial PPE". Of the four items that it complains were missing from the stockpile - gowns, visors, swabs and body bags - two (gowns and swabs) were ones that the government didn't expect to need for the epidemics it was planning for, the visors are expensive and bulky to store but so easy to manufacture hobbyists with 3D printers can literally do it at home, and I'm not even sure what's going on with body bags because there was famously a huge Brexit stockpile of those. Anyway, my overall point is that governments and corporations don't get credit for planning, they get blamed for the ways in which their plans don't predict the future exactly.

[TheOtherHobbes]

Perhaps you missed the C4 doco which showed that stockpiles of PPE of all kinds were run down and what was left was often out of date.

Or the conclusions of the government's own Exercise Cygnus in 2016 which stated clearly that this should never be allowed to happen because the consequences would be beyond horrific.

[hardsoftnfloppy]

What do you mean the didn’t have a plan?

Step 1: cause panic Step 2: profit