Paul GrahamVerified account

Respect for China’s speed of execution (by removing bureaucracy) and tech capabilities is likely to increase manifold in the days to come. Also this a mega test for every country’s public health systems. People’s reliance on their chosen govts is likely to get tested.

Thanks Paul for sharing. You are a very important point of reference for me in this time of anxiety and uncertainty here in Italy. I send you a big hug.

I find it worrying that the central dogma in the thread is 'assume this information is true"

When @pmarca @balajis called #COVID19 out early the media was so skeptical. Kinda shows the @a16z knack for finding things that are about to

South Korea handled #COVID19 much better than China: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/south-korea/ …

More importantly, they cannot be isolated at home. Minor illnesses can become severe illnesses, and transmission from family to family can lead to a family infection. Centralized grading of patients who are already infected is effective.

Nothing we’re doing now is closing the gap. We’re falling further behind what China did every day from Day 0. In 4-6 weeks, we will look more like Italy than China unless some unknown factor saves us (eg, warm weather, milder social distancing, medication to reduce severity)

Do we really want to depend on chance unknowns? We need to influence local and state governments to act more assertively now

Has anyone addressed the South Korean numbers? Very low death and hospitalization rates in general and effectively zero for both under 60 years of age. I’m getting more skeptical of anyone estimating severity without doing so.