With wall-to-wall coronovirus news now impossible to miss, I wanted to do a bit of a brain dump of my thoughts on and around this scary issue. For personal catharsis and reference, as much as to inform the few others who might read it. I think this will likely turn out to be the most significant event in my living memory, so far.😨
On the Curve:
My
perspective with this blog was very much underpinned by
extropianism and the inevitability of exponential technological advances most famously expounded by
Ray Kurzweil. So of course I've often been aware of how typical human thinking and expectations is unable to grasp exponential changes. E.g.
how solar PV is due to come from seemingly nowhere to suddenly be providing abundant clean electricity for most of the globe.
I'm wondering if the exponential spread of the Covid-19/SARS-Cov-2 virus will be a turning point in public awareness for the power and immediate relevance of such non-linear growth rates. Certainly the initial spread appeared to follow an exponential curve [
YouTube]:
China's figures now claim the rate of infection spread has peaked after their impressively agile response [
Twitter thread]. Throwing up entire new hospitals in a couple weeks, switching (free!) healthcare provision and interaction to be more online, bringing in hospital staff from all over and locking down entire regions with high compliance.
It's great news, if accurate, given how much of the world's goods are supplied by China. There was much reporting (in Western media) of initial infection whistle-blowers being silenced/punished for descent against the state, perhaps frustrating potential for early containment (we don't know, and might not). But the virus was recognised pretty early and sequenced in record time. However, the heroic containment efforts [
NY Times] may have only bought the rest of the world a few precious weeks to start preparing...
Epidemic Response:
There's very good reason to be scared for a worst case scenario outbreak in the US, where testing has been abysmally lacking. Tests alone have been costing individuals thousands of dollars out of pocket and there's no protection for many workers to take sick leave (let alone as a precaution). Pretty strong incentives not to act responsibly.
Also, the Trump administration dismantled the pandemic response team, back in 2018, at the time of an Ebola outbreak [
Independent,
FP]. He put openly anti-science Vice President Pence in charge of the coronavirus response and Trump himself has been lying that the spread has been "stopped" [
Independent].
A very similar situation in the UK, where Tory government has been defunding the NHS for a decade, purging international staff and heath workers with Brexit xenophobia and now with an untouchable majority PM Johnson is making terrifying babbling noises about the UK just "
taking it on the chin" [
Twitter Video] and allowing the infection to spread, effectively... 😱
The WHO's (arguably belated) declaration of a global Covid-19 pandemic, today (2020-03-11) sounds like a direct dig at these attitudes: "we were deeply concerned, both by the alarming spread and severity and by the alarming levels of inaction"! Complacency and lack of fear is arguably more scary than a little panic (although calm assertive action is the call of the day, now).
Above is closer to the real story of public spaces - drone footage of Birmingham city centre on a sunny Saturday afternoon. It's usually heaving with crowds, but is now deserted! [Twitter Video]
