[jandrewrogers]

An issue I had, having been previously quite familiar with the literature on the 2003 variant of COVID, is that the government manifestly ignored many of the scientific findings of that earlier outbreak for political reasons.

It would have been great if they leaned on the science from the 2003 version of the disease, but they didn’t and some of the policies made no sense in light of that prior literature.

[RandomLensman]

Perhaps, but are you familiar with the practice of the 2003 version, too? I don't mean that facetiously, but my experience is that practice and literature are two very different things in medical sciences (and others, too). There is a social component to epidemics, for example, that you don't just get to ignore.