To fight covid-19, governments need to rethink the value of information – MIT Technology Review Insights

In 2008, the UK published its first national risk register, allowing a public sense of the national security priorities for civil emergencies. The report measured risks along two dimensions--relative impact and relative likelihood--with the possibility of a pandemic influence topping the list. A year later the world saw the swine flu pandemic, causing hundreds of thousands of deaths. While the UK saw hundreds of thousands of cases, they saw relatively few deaths. From the perspective of governments, pandemics are not black swans. The issue is not whether a country foresees a pandemic and prepares accordingly, it's whether the systems in place can function under the level of stress resulting from a pandemic.