> They knew that there was a continuous risk of a pandemic

But I think so did every country.

Wasn't global pandemic at the top of almost every country's national security risk register? They knew it was likely, and they knew it was high-risk. I know for a fact it was at the top of the UK's public national security risk register.

You're perpetuating a silly myth that major western countries didn't know this was coming and didn't know it was a big risk.

There basically wasn't a proper "modern day" pandemic before this. The previous one was the spanish flu in 1918 which was very quickly forgotten due to a much larger pointless massacre (world wars)

Air travel increase is a big factor why it got so bad so quickly, even in the past two decades basically everything has changed. We have hundreds millions of people basically teleporting between continents every day.

There have been 3 flu pandemics since 1918: 1957, 1968, 2009. In addition, cholera and AIDS have had non-influenza pandemics in the same timeframe, and there's a clutch of infectious diseases with little spread that qualify as pandemics by the definition of sustained spread in two countries in different regions of the world (e.g., mumps). MERS might also qualify by the definition.

> We have hundreds millions of people basically teleporting between continents every day

That's hyperbole. In 2019 there were 4.5 billion passengers boarding a flight[1]. Divide by 365 days and you get on the order of 10 million per day, most of which will not be intercontinental.

I don't disagree about the amount of air travel nowadays facilitating pandemics, just wanted to get the numbers straight.

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/564717/airline-industry-...

You are arguing a very minor point.

I appreciate the feedback, it feels better than getting only downvotes. I thought it was an important point because the number was off by at least an order of magnitude, maybe two. But I can see how my response might have been seen as pedantic.

>> pointless massacre

You’re implying as if wars happen because people are all angry and if they just happened to be kinder then all of that would be resolved immediately.

It’s discounting a bunch of pragmatic reasons a lot of which have nothing to do with philosophy or human condition.

Not immediately, but life was worse for basically all participants (at least the major powers that precipitated wwi)

They (or someone within the government at least) may have known, but they did not act on it. On the contrary, for example California defunded its emergency stockpile.

Misinterprering by responding to half a sentence is rude.

>> and prepared for one happening eventually

Yes you're right - misinterprering by responding to part of a thread is rude.

Which is what you're doing - because the context of the thread is more specifically that anyone foresaw it - 'He couldn’t foresee that. No one did.' and the person I'm replied to that saying that they thought just some like Taiwan foresaw it.

Both are demonstrably false claims - you can look at public national security risk registers to confirm to yourself that many other countries foresaw it.

> They knew that there was a continuous risk of a pandemic and prepared for one happening eventually.

What else did they prepare for. Is this public knowledge?

Why are you wording this like you're suspicious? Disaster preparedness is not some big conspiracy. Just because America is doing a shit job at this doesn't mean other countries are out to get them.

It's just that COVID-19 is the third coronavirus to cause an epidemic this century - after SARS and MERS.

If you drop the "coronavirus" requirement, at least fourth - there was also the 2009 Swine Flu pandemic.

I believe the 2009 swine flu is responsible for this times weak response. I remember last time a lot of fear was stoked up in the media and a huge amount of tamiflu bought by the government, and almost nothing happened in the end, apart from public scepticism and unhappiness about the squandering of funds. I think politics didnt want to repeat the mistake

yea i guess i meant other than pandemics.