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I am ashamed of how bad our great nation has done in combatting COVID19. When China locked down its country, on January 24, 2020, we should have used that time to better prepare. #ApollosArrowChat 1/
On January 24, 2020, China essentially put 930 million people under home confinement. Along with Chinese colleagues, we showed this in this @nature paper: nature.com/articles/s4158… Movement in the country stopped. 2/ 
In essence, China felt that SARS-CoV-2 was so powerful that it had to detonate a "social nuclear weapon," as I argue in #APOLLOSARROW (for some details, see this thread from March 9: ) 3/
Yes, I do think that COVID19 *might* be remembered differently, in part because of the superior (electronic, real-time) documentation of our predicament. #ApollosArrowChat 1/
And yet, the Black Death had quite an impact on collective memory, as I also discuss in APOLLO'S ARROW, deploying what was, for its day, cutting edge (artistic) communications. 2/
I also think we're now more aware of the periodicity of global pandemics. We understand that they recur every 10-20 years, and have *serious* recurrences every 50-100 years (though there is no reason a serious one could not recur sooner). This is in Chapter 8 of #APOLLOSARROW 3/
Lies (and superstitions and conspiracy theories) are such an inexorable feature of plagues (for thousands of years, as I show in APOLLO'S ARROW) that one might even say that they are a part of what it means to be a plague. #ApollosArrowChat 1/
Just as pathogens spread from person to person during deadly epidemics like COVID19, lies follow right behind.
Lies are a squire to plague, one of the four horseman of the apocalypse. 2/
Lies are a squire to plague, one of the four horseman of the apocalypse. 2/
In Chapter 4 of APOLLO'S ARROW, "Grief, Fear, and Lies," I explain why this is so. One reason is that it is more consoling to us poor victims of a deadly contagion to imagine certain (false) explanations for our predicament than other (true) ones. 3/
Yes, I think that major cities, including NYC, will *eventually* return to normal, albeit some time in 2024. #ApollosArrowChat 1/
While it is the case that people have *always* fled cities for the country during times of plague (e.g., famously including Isaac Newton washingtonpost.com/history/2020/0… via @washingtonpost), the appeal of cities is so great that people always returned. 2/
As I argue in #apollosarrow, I think that the COVID19 pandemic will temporarily reverse worldwide trends of globalization and urbanization, but the rationales for these trends are so compelling that we will return to the status ex ante in a few years. 3/
