Good scenario: the West rallies late through the decentralized response. MDs, nurses, engineers, scientists stop spread.
Bad scenario: lockdown crashes economy, but isn’t paired with enough tech to arrest virus. The crash further immunocompromises society. Worst of both worlds.
Bad scenario: lockdown crashes economy, but isn’t paired with enough tech to arrest virus. The crash further immunocompromises society. Worst of both worlds.
Need to game out bad scenarios to avoid them.
Suppose the West clones Asian lockdown imperfectly, and decentralized response ships good tech, but central coordination isn’t there.
Then economy crashes *and* virus spreads. And crash further reduces resources to fight the spread.
Suppose the West clones Asian lockdown imperfectly, and decentralized response ships good tech, but central coordination isn’t there.
Then economy crashes *and* virus spreads. And crash further reduces resources to fight the spread.
If lockdown is simultaneously extensive yet porous, if it’s not combined with testing and the 100 other things Asian countries did, and if duration is not minimized — the resultant economic damage may leave society actually less able to fight off the virus.
We now know Asia can innovate. The question is whether the West can bring themselves to copy those aspects of the Chinese (or Korean, Taiwanese, etc) responses that are ethically and logistically feasible.
Could save us all from the bad scenario.
Could save us all from the bad scenario.
