These are good questions. My question re: the lockdown probably needs to be worded differently, because I meant it as “a lockdown has been attempted at the point of origin and yet the virus continued to spread,” which we knew had happened once the virus showed up in Thailand.
I knew this would only have given early warning a few days before the stock market crash due to the deaths cutoff. I wanted a fairly conservative alarm bell. But maybe a good refinement would be to create a graduated series of alarm bell questionnaires based on the same criteria, but with cutoffs that would have caused it to “ring” a month, two weeks, one week, and two days before the stock market crash.
I’ll add this idea to the OP and also reword the “escape lockdown” criteria. Thanks for the feedback!
I think even a few days has the potential to be extremely valuable if it can be pulled off. If worldwide reactions had happened a few days sooner then half of the cases could have been avoided. LW ringing an alarm bell a few days earlier might not have had an effect on policy but its important to note how big the potential gains are.
As you say in the OP, the next time any pandemic comes along the worldwide response is likely to be better. So my main question is how do we generalise this advice for other severe dangers.
To me one of the main issues if the speed at which things happen. Most things which happen gradually give enough time for people to react without disastrous consequences—COVID only gives a few days before your problem is doubled. This would be fairly high on my checklist specifically for a future pandemic—low doubling times—but for general alarm bell ringing speed of problem development should also be up there.
When it comes to optimizing the alarm bells it would be good to have a large Google Doc with different crisis, different criteria and then see which criteria are best for early warnings.
These are good questions. My question re: the lockdown probably needs to be worded differently, because I meant it as “a lockdown has been attempted at the point of origin and yet the virus continued to spread,” which we knew had happened once the virus showed up in Thailand.
I knew this would only have given early warning a few days before the stock market crash due to the deaths cutoff. I wanted a fairly conservative alarm bell. But maybe a good refinement would be to create a graduated series of alarm bell questionnaires based on the same criteria, but with cutoffs that would have caused it to “ring” a month, two weeks, one week, and two days before the stock market crash.
I’ll add this idea to the OP and also reword the “escape lockdown” criteria. Thanks for the feedback!
I think even a few days has the potential to be extremely valuable if it can be pulled off. If worldwide reactions had happened a few days sooner then half of the cases could have been avoided. LW ringing an alarm bell a few days earlier might not have had an effect on policy but its important to note how big the potential gains are.
As you say in the OP, the next time any pandemic comes along the worldwide response is likely to be better. So my main question is how do we generalise this advice for other severe dangers.
To me one of the main issues if the speed at which things happen. Most things which happen gradually give enough time for people to react without disastrous consequences—COVID only gives a few days before your problem is doubled. This would be fairly high on my checklist specifically for a future pandemic—low doubling times—but for general alarm bell ringing speed of problem development should also be up there.
*insert obligatory FOOM comment here...*
When it comes to optimizing the alarm bells it would be good to have a large Google Doc with different crisis, different criteria and then see which criteria are best for early warnings.