Virus risk, pandemic modelling and the challenge for AI - Risk.net

In particular, the machine learning advantage showed itself early on in the pandemic, spotting the first signs of pandemic risk and recommending derisking or even a stop to trading. And, as the spread of the virus gives the world a lethal demonstration of exactly what exponential growth looks like, we're all learning that an apparently insignificant delay in responding early on can make a catastrophic difference once the curve steepens. The US introduced social distancing on March 16; had it done so on March 2 instead, 90% of those now dead of Covid-19 would still be alive, epidemiologists estimate. Similar delays of a few days in response may have made the difference between European countries like Greece and Ireland suffering hundreds of deaths, and countries like the UK and Spain suffering thousands. Taiwan's health ministry, meanwhile, has reportedly credited part of the country's prompt response to the pandemic to an unlikely source: a December 2019 post on the virus on the country's unruly PTT online bulletin board.