Short thread on difficulty of taking decisions as the #COVIDー19 threat grows and the info epidemiologists are working from. Think this is important for regular folks and policy makers (slightly inspired by this article from @gabyhinsliff (UK based)) theguardian.com/commentisfree/… 1/n
I’m anxious that policy makers around the world, but esp in the US and UK (countries I am closest to) are nervously watching the situation and waiting for more information to take tough decisions. But If you wait to know the right thing to do, it will be too late to do it 2/n
People obviously want answers to questions like when should we shut schools? Or halt gatherings? Or close workplaces? Or more severe means of social distancing. At the moment, we don’t know enough about the virus to be able to give definitive answers 3/n
Take school closures: they all depend on how much kids transmit (not get sick, but transmit which is not the same thing). In Hong Kong, schools have been shut for weeks awaiting serological surveys to determine whether kids are infected. 4/n
Even that wouldn’t tell whether they are infected and transmit but would help. Thing is none of us know. I don’t know. @mlipsitch doesn’t know. Some people (eg @JustinLessler) have been trying to determine rates of infection in kids but amt of transmission just isn’t clear 5/n
And won’t be for some time, and these decisions have to be taken *now*. Policy makers cannot wait for all the answers to these questions. It is important to know things like the true mortality rate and the reproductive number, but we can’t wait for them to decide what to do 6/n
Let's go with what we *know*. This virus can cause huge outbreaks and severe social disruption is required to control it (look at Wuhan and the great work being done in South Korea for examples). Anything that can be done to avoid them, should be done 7/n
We cannot give you a set of simple instructions and you shouldn't get lost in complex nuanced advice. Wuhan shows the cost of inaction. Again - if you wait to be sure of how to do the right thing, it will be too late to do the right thing 8/n
This is from the @gabyhinsliff article up top. And it explains why I am now going to turn off twitter for a while /fin 
