Re:The WHO is seeking a new treaty on handling future pandemics
by ethbr0 on Monday November 29, 2021 @07:51AM
(#29379222)
It's the cancelling school (or work) for snow problem in a nutshell.
If you cancel, and there is no snow, you've caused economic damage, which has very real health consequences.
If you don't cancel, and there is heavy snow, you've caused physical damage, with very real health consequences.
Implementing full international pandemic prevention protocols in a timely manner was probably realistically impossible, given it's never been done in the 21st century.
But beyond that, it's questionable whether making the decision at the time, knowing what was known about SARS-CoV-2, was even a justifiable call. For the reasons you mentioned.
And not just because of the alarmist factor, but because of very real (and sometimes lethal) consequences of implementing them. And I don't think there was a case for preemptively being that aggressive, given MERS and SARS-CoV-1 were both regionally contained.
If you cancel, and there is no snow, you've caused economic damage, which has very real health consequences.
If you don't cancel, and there is heavy snow, you've caused physical damage, with very real health consequences.
Implementing full international pandemic prevention protocols in a timely manner was probably realistically impossible, given it's never been done in the 21st century.
But beyond that, it's questionable whether making the decision at the time, knowing what was known about SARS-CoV-2, was even a justifiable call. For the reasons you mentioned.
And not just because of the alarmist factor, but because of very real (and sometimes lethal) consequences of implementing them. And I don't think there was a case for preemptively being that aggressive, given MERS and SARS-CoV-1 were both regionally contained.