Coronavirus. Over reaction or not?

[Josephus]

So every week, it seems as though it's getting worse. Israel is basically gonna shut down it's airport. Northern Italy, the cool part with the hot women, is under lockdown. Public events are being cancelled. Dublin cancels St. Paddy's day.
Are we, that is the government and organizations, over reacting? Thousands of people die of flu every year, and most people aren't even aware of it.

[Grey Fox]

Regular flu spreading is really slow & requires multiple exposure. This new Covid-19 is fast & skews old in a world of old people.

[The Minsky Moment]

I've already stated my position on this.  Since then, it appears the worst case scenarios in terms of mortality rates can be ruled out.  The true mortality is probably no greater than 1 percent.  But it is definitely significantly more deadly than the seasonal flu - probably 5 to 10 times more deadly.  Which is pretty bad considering how deadly seasonal flu can be despite the existence of vaccines.

[Tamas]

Quite possibly, from next year, nobody will care who catches Covid-19. But to me it seems we cannot be certain of how dangerous it is. Plus we might still have a chance of getting mostly rid of it. The responsible thing in this situation is to over-react.

[Zanza]

I think they are too passive and should do much more aggressive and far reaching quarantine and control of travellers. Social isolation helps against the virus.

[Maximus]

Governments and organizations are mostly under-reacting. Individuals are mostly over-reacting*.

[Legbiter]

Agree with everyone. When you don't know the risk but there's a potential tail risk of total ruin, you massively overreact and you do it early. Just look at Iran. You can be paranoid and wrong 1000's of times and survive fine, be blasé once and be wrong and you're dead.

[Legbiter]

Governments and organizations are mostly under-reacting. Individuals are mostly over-reacting*.

It's kinda funny, individuals overreacting in this instance helps the society by curtailing the spread. I don't do handshakes, wash hands frequently, I've set up a home gym, I avoid public gatherings for instance by shopping a lot more in bulk to reduce my social connectivity.

The actual risk of catching the virus is miniscule, therefore it is "irrational" to panic like this but if everyone dosen't act ultra-cautiously the virus will spread and severe risk to society will happen.

[PDH]

I say we should all start culling the elderly before they are infected and extracting vital minerals and amino acids from them.  Then we should panic.

[Richard Hakluyt]

I don't like shaking hands anyway, it turns out that it takes me 30 seconds to wash my hands (though I have increased the frequency) and i don't like the gym or restaurants so now have a great excuse not to bother. For me at least semi-isolation is a breeze 

[Tamas]

I don't like shaking hands anyway, it turns out that it takes me 30 seconds to wash my hands (though I have increased the frequency) and i don't like the gym or restaurants so now have a great excuse not to bother. For me at least semi-isolation is a breeze 

I must admit it would not be a dramatic lifestyle change for me either.

[Sheilbh]

Quite possibly, from next year, nobody will care who catches Covid-19. But to me it seems we cannot be certain of how dangerous it is. Plus we might still have a chance of getting mostly rid of it. The responsible thing in this situation is to over-react.

Yeah I've no idea. Like we could all look back on this and wonder what the panic was about or it could be severe.

My impression of the UK government is it's under-reacting. I also wonder how much we're learning from South Korea - some of the testing stuff we've picked up, but I think there's more we could do/learn.

My impression of the US government is that it's looking profoundly negligent at best, especially on testing. The numbers in the US, given the low number of tests that have apparently been done seem worrying to me.

I also think there's a bit too much reliance on the government to impose measures. I've said before but I think the Premier League should, at a minimum, have advised elderly ticket-holders to stay away and, honestly, should probably be playing games behind closed doors. Multiple crowds across the country of 30,000+ people from all over the country and, at certain grounds, overseas strikes me as risky.

I get the stuff around individuals over-reacting - and yet I still see people not covering their mouthes when they cough/sneeze

[fromtia]

Agree with everyone else. Individuals who hoard toilet paper and plan for a Charlton Heston Omega Man type outcome are being a bit melodramatic. Because its a horrible virus and new and it kills old people fairly reliably, the right thing for national governments to do is to over react, economy be damned, and contain it and push it back. It seems like the Chinese have had the most success.

[Syt]

Agree with everyone. When you don't know the risk but there's a potential tail risk of total ruin, you massively overreact and you do it early. Just look at Iran.

... or climate change.

[Sheilbh]

Agree with everyone else. Individuals who hoard toilet paper and plan for a Charlton Heston Omega Man type outcome are being a bit melodramatic. Because its a horrible virus and new and it kills old people fairly reliably, the right thing for national governments to do is to over react, economy be damned, and contain it and push it back. It seems like the Chinese have had the most success.

Although I still have a slight conspiracy about China.

I am suspicious that it basically got very out of hand in Wuhan with local officials covering it up/dealing with it locally, before they decided to inform their bosses/national government before Chinese New Year when it couldn't be kept local any longer. By which point it was probably too late.