[y4mi]

i don't have any domain knowledge so i cannot build an opinion on the matter, but the fact that they discovered it doesn't give them more authority on the topic then everyone else.

most researchers i've heard on the topic only said "we will have to pay close attention to it", which sounds pretty reasonable from my uneducated perspective.

[jrochkind1]

The South African scientists I have read saying "over-reacting" also agree with what you summarize as most researchers saying: "we will have to pay attention to it".

They say we are over-reacting because many places are doing more than paying attention to it, making policy decisions and instituting additional restrictions based on unproven fears about it, not just paying attention to it.

The South African scientists who discovered it don't have more authority on the topic than everyone else, but they have as much or more than many. They have more than, say, me. They probably have as much as most other scientists in the field, since they're on the ground with access to evidence, and for longer than anyone else.

[TheOtherHobbes]

Believing there's an option to do nothing until more data is available is a luxurious fallacy.

By then it's too late. Obviously.

That's the problem with exponential growth. Not much seems to happen until suddenly it all happens at once, and the only chance to prevent that was a few weeks ago.

[jrochkind1]

I don't understand your theory of when it's appropriate to impose restrictions before you have enough data to know they are useful or necessary.

Is your suggestion, what, to impose the strictest restrictions possible everywhere, forever, just in case, because by the time we know it's really necessary it's too late, so we should always do it without knowing it's necessary?

Like, what do you think should trigger restrictions? Just finding a variant? Should all the variants Alpha through Mu have triggered global worldwide lockdown, because if they had turned out more dangerous than they did, by the time we had found that out it would have been too late? Basically we should lock down until there are no more variants? (Will that ever happen?)

[junon]

> but they have as much or more than many

That's not how epidemiology or even science works. There are so many variables at play that a response in one region might not make sense in another region, and the same goes for the virus's behavior.

[tremon]

Both the name and the picture in the article would suggest that "he" is, in all likelihood, a she.

[y4mi]

I corrected it to they, sorry for using a gendered pronoun. It sometimes slips my mind, as I never really thought about "he" being male in this kind of context. I will pay more attention to it.