This thread was created on 3/8/2020, or approximately one million years ago in virus time. It’s getting pretty bloated now, and a lot of things that were high value at the time have been eclipsed by events, making karma not a very useful sorting tool. So I’m declaring this thread finished, and asking everyone to move over to the April Coronavirus Open Thread.
Interested in what happened in this thread? Here’s the timeless or not-yet-eclipsed highlights:
Scott Alexander comes up with Hammer and Dance 6 days before Tomas Pueyo
Spiracular on why SARS-Cov-2 is unlikely to be lab-created.
Twodocuments collating estimates of basic epidemiological parameters, in response to this thread
Discussion on whether the tuberculosis vaccine provides protection against COVID-19.
I mean Y2K in the sense of lots of fretting about something that turns out not to happen, whether because of significant preparation or from just being wrong about the urgency.
I realize it doesn't seem likely, but in the spirit of humility before humanity's collective ignorance, how might we know we were wrong? Like, clearly nobody's expecting US cases to suddenly level off and then disappear, but what if that happens anyway? At what point would we say we were just totally wrong?
This thread was created on 3/8/2020, or approximately one million years ago in virus time. It’s getting pretty bloated now, and a lot of things that were high value at the time have been eclipsed by events, making karma not a very useful sorting tool. So I’m declaring this thread finished, and asking everyone to move over to the April Coronavirus Open Thread.
Interested in what happened in this thread? Here’s the timeless or not-yet-eclipsed highlights: