The fact that it is now proven to be transmitted from human to human is concerning -- I've read that there is potential for an epidemic -- cases are being reported now in the U.S. They say this cornavirus isn't as threatening as SARS or MERS -- but I think it is too early to tell -- and I see the potential for a pandemic.
How to prepare?
The Next Pandemic Will Come. Here’s How to Prepare.....The biggest lesson, which China seems to have learned, is that the government must be ruthlessly honest and transparent. The more facts, the better. Hide nothing. It was my trust in that Hong Kong website that eventually made me believe SARS was waning. Once trust between the population and the state breaks down, controlling an outbreak becomes almost impossible.
Another lesson is, thankfully, one we’ve already learned. Screening and surveillance, which should usually be used with caution in free societies, becomes necessary in an outbreak and is effective. Even now various airports around the world are digitally observing the body temperatures of passengers arriving from Wuhan, the center of the new outbreak.
Quarantine should be voluntary at first and actively encouraged by employers and government. Whoever can work from home, via Skype and such, should do so, without fearing recrimination. The more people can keep acting on their own volition, the more “agency†they believe they have, the calmer and more cooperative they will remain. Once an outbreak goes out of control, of course, quarantines must become mandatory.
But the most profound lesson is that we must cooperate as a species, with a geopolitical approach that seems to have gone out of fashion: multilateralism. We’ve always been locked in an arms race between the evolution of viruses, bacteria and fungi and our medicines against them. When a new virus appears, it potentially threatens all of us and should be fought by all of us together.
That means a new bug’s genome, wherever it’s first collected, should be sequenced and immediately made available, like open-source computer code, to certified researchers everywhere. (You still need the World Health Organization or some such body to accredit the boffins, lest the genome gets into the hands of terrorists). All labs and scientists should then share their insights with the entire profession........
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-01-21/coronavirus-how-we-should-prepare-for-the-next-pandemic
