This is not about fear-mongering or panic...at least not from my perspective. I'm actually not panicked at all. I am, however, concerned. The reason being that we actually have a choice to mitigate this thing or not. If the sun was about to go supernova (not withstanding it's not massive enough)..but you get the drift: an inevitable calamity over which we have zero control and whose path we cannot alter in any way, then I would be first in line to take my family on as many 'trips of a lifetime', and actually, the bargain prices are irrelevant. And I don't mean Armagaddon only scenarios: this is NOT, as I've said plenty of times, an existential threat. Humanity will come through: some of our institutions may be severely damaged causing massive harm, depending on the path we choose...

In fact, if what we are seeing in Asia vs. Europe/US is anything to go by, a full-on pandemic may not be inevitable at all (although I'm more cautious about that since I think there are still multiple pockets of cases that just aren't being counted). But certainly, it seems that by strong measures, we can appreciably mitigate the growth/ expansion rate of cases...and thereby help protect our healthcare infrastructure. This can't be achieved solely by government regulation: in Iran, when the gov initially broke the news about COVID-19 and shut down some schools/ work, everyone immediately packed their suitcases to vacation near the Caspian -- and generated an outbreak hotspot there! Our personal actions CAN influence how this plays out.

But unfortunately, this thread has become polarized: I don't know why. Surely, we should all be watching developments, and then responding nimbly to what direction we can best serve our society...at the very beginning of COVID-19, I said that travel restrictions would be minimally effective, because we knew that they don't work well with influenza...I was wrong: this is somewhat different to influenza: it seems transmission is more than influenza in the absence of social distancing, but actually lower than influenza in the presence of social distancing. I was very skeptical that China could control the outbreak in Wuhan, again I was wrong. But you know what, these strong measures bring us a glimmer of hope. We can throw it away on principle whilst crying out about personal liberty being the most important thing ever...we will all sow what we reap, but collectively, as a global society.

tb