[hnfong]

I agree he's probably a self-entitled know-it-all, but I think at least his conclusion for COVID was spot on. By 2020-01-26 Wuhan (a major Chinese city) was already under lock down, so it was pretty clear CoVID19 was serious. I live in Asia, so I'm not in a position to understand the sentiment in (for example) the US, so the "let's wait until we have more data" attitude is really perplexing to me.

Sure, there was no public data on r0 and no proof that COVID19 was similar to the other SARS viruses. But given only the info of "Wuhan was under lockdown", wouldn't it be indicative of the seriousness and the contagiousness of the virus, at least in the eyes of Chinese government officials?

I always thought the "West" misinterpreted the events in China at their detriment. Perhaps they assumed that it merely reflected the inability of the Chinese government to control a pandemic instead of actual seriousness of the disease?

Anyway I started wearing a surgical mask regularly and made sure I washed hands thoroughly after the Wuhan lockdown was announced. I hate wearing masks but it was less than $1/day and some inconvenience compared with an unknown but potentially scary disease. Not sure how anyone would come to a conclusion that taking precautions could be a bad bet (on a personal level at least).

[Zababa]

I agree with you about COVID. In January, we had videos of China blocking roads that led to Wuhan, soldiers in the streets, people disinfecting the streets. At this point, I knew that it was probably going to be serious.

[rkk3]

More than that.. by the 26th they had already cancelled Chinese New Year & implemented lockdowns/restrictions outside of Hubei.

[chefandy]

He said he was wearing N95 masks for a week before the 26th. Wuhan locked down on the 23rd.

Ebola was a large and growing problem in Africa in 2015 which covered a larger swath of the population, had nearly identical messaging from the Government, and would trigger a lockdown in Sierra Leone. Lots of folks regularly travel between the west coast of Africa and major American cities. I'd argue it would not have been prudent to start wearing Ebola PPE at that point, either. Of course, because it was Africa and not China, it only got marginal news coverage compared to the enormity of the problem on the ground, and much less traction on technology platforms because to this day, 25% of Sierra Leone's population has internet access. Epidemiologists were every bit as concerned about Ebola as they were about COVID before COVID's higher initial R0 number was released.

I'd like to hear the justification for not donning Ebola PPE given what was ostensibly a nearly identical situation that fortunately ended up being handled a whole lot better. Or maybe he did and he left that one off?