Hacker News Reader

Slightly torn on this. Surely it would be good to understand it better so that it might be recognised earlier next time. However the world’s mostly shambolic response is probably the better focus for inquiry. Can’t help feeling that the former issue is being used as a smokescreen for the latter.

View on HN

> Can’t help feeling that the former issue is being used as a smokescreen for the latter.

It certainly looks that way. Given pandemics are a naturally occuring event, the origin of the event itself doesnt excuse the breakdowns in government, policy and to a certain extent personal human behaviour. It is not promisiong as there were precedents and plans in place, but we learnt nothing from inquiries into past pandemics.

Every person probably needs to have their own personal inquiry, no matter which side; 'its jsut the flu' to 'this is the end of humanity' and everywhere in between.

The flu killed an estimated 50 million people in 1918, which if it was in current times would be about 250 million. People always get mad when others say it is just like the flu, but actually the flu has had way worse outbreaks than covid.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com