On The Current Plague

I have been following - with mild interest - the Corona Virus (now named Covid-19).  I have had a little passing interest in this:  while we were in Japan, the Diamond Princess, the ship which has had a number of casualties, had just returned to Japan and it was something of a big deal (hard to believe it was only two weeks ago).  I have been tangentially tracking the news as I have tried to continue to catch back up with everything I missed at work.

I am not one that becomes overly concerned about such things.  I am in enough of the science field to understand that the global economy makes these things highly risky and possible (Transport to virtually anywhere within the world within 36 hours).  I also know that large scale plagues are hard to spread:  I have, in the last 10 years, lived through SARS, H5N (Avian Flu), and the Ebola virus with little enough impact to my life.

The Covid-19 virus is not that different - except (like everything else) when the government gets involved.

To say that the Chinese government appears to have mishandled this is the tamest thing to be said.  Given the nature of the government, it is not surprising that this is so (Communist regimes, historically, are pretty bad communicators about things which are bad news and potentially endanger the regime).  A problem that could have dealt with sooner was not dealt with at all due to fears of how it would look (again, not great surprise.  Review the history of The Great Leap Forward.  It is instructive).

But the failed involvement is not limited to them.  The Japanese government apparently let folks out quarantine that should not have been.  And just this week, the US government repatriated individuals that were on the ship (apparently because the Japanese government gave them no choice) but failed to inform the Executive Branch that they were doing it.  And now, they cannot find a place to put them:  California cities which fight to show how inclusive they are of anyone are fighting to keep these people away because "Not In My Backyard" is a reality when dealing with your potentially sick fellow citizens.

Now, I am concerned.  Not because of the virus itself, but because virtually every government is showing itself completely unable to address these things in any sort of thoughtful manner.

These are how plagues get worse.  And spiral out of control pretty quickly.  The damage has already been done - see the increasing cases in South Korea, Italy, Israel, and Iran.  Now, we wait.

Even I am starting to keep a closer eye one what we have in the house.  I go out less. And for the first time in forever, I am starting to double up on fish and rabbit supplies - you know, just in case.

If you wanted to see an actual plot for a collapse, you could not go much astray from this:  a highly contagious virus combined with governments that either will not address the problem or badly mis-step again and again in addressing it.

On the bright side, it makes the threat of civilization's end by Zombies that much less real.