# Did Anybody See This coming? **URL:** \ **Category:** The Quarantine Zone\ **Tags:** covid-quarantine\ **Created:** [April 8, 2020, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anybody-see-this-coming/851343 "2020-04-08T14:27:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Sean\_the\_Dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ed8c4c/32.png) [@Sean\_the\_Dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sean_the_Dog)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2020, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anybody-see-this-coming/851343/41 "2020-04-09T01:48:14Z")
> [@susan](#): > > HIV isn’t airborne. You have to work at it to get it. Absolutely true, but I remember when it was thought to be a strictly gay disease (gay cancer, it was called) and no one was sure how it was spread. Then it was thought to be the problem of gays and junkies only. We used to get warnings about it in high school, about '84. Things have changed greatly since then, but people still get it (and not just in poorer countries). It changed the world. ---
**Author:** ![Sean\_the\_Dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ed8c4c/32.png) [@Sean\_the\_Dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sean_the_Dog)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2020, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anybody-see-this-coming/851343/42 "2020-04-09T01:50:40Z")
> [@Francis\_Vaughan](#): > > …As to really forseeing it - how about Bill Gates? [https://youtu.be/6Af6b\_wyiwI](https://youtu.be/6Af6b_wyiwI) There’s a reason he’s a billionaire and I’m not. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2020, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anybody-see-this-coming/851343/43 "2020-04-09T01:54:41Z")
> [@Sean\_the\_Dog](#): > > Then my supervisor at work calls on Saturday, March 14, to tell me work is going to minimum manning for at least three weeks. Good thing I was there to take the call or I would have thought it was a joke. > > Am I the only one caught off-guard by all this? I posted on March 12, that I feared Australia wasn’t handling travel from the USA correctly. So it was about a week before that I started seriously thinking of the USA as an “infected country”. And by March 1, it was already too late, the USA should have been testing and isolating all through February. So yes, I was clearly caught off guard. Thread [Is anyone else concerned with this new virus in China that is becoming a bigger problem every day?](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=888872) was started January 23, so clearly some people weren’t as blasé as I was. ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2020, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anybody-see-this-coming/851343/44 "2020-04-09T01:55:27Z")
I still can’t believe it. I would have bet my house that nothing short of nuclear war could cause the NCAA basketball tournament to be cancelled. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2020, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anybody-see-this-coming/851343/45 "2020-04-09T02:27:06Z")
> [@PhillyGuy](#): > > Answer to the thread question is: > > [George W. Bush](https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/george-bush-2005-wait-pandemic-late-prepare/story?id=69979013&cid=social_twitter_abcn) You know, if W could figure that out for himself, nobody gets a pass on saying, “Nobody could have known.” Stranger ---
**Author:** ![JohnGalt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johngalt/32/184_2.png) [@JohnGalt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnGalt)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2020, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anybody-see-this-coming/851343/46 "2020-04-09T02:34:04Z")
I knew there was a virus in China, but the story [Apple warns China virus will cut iPhone production, sales](https://apnews.com/2ed97816c426883a735db996cb1185af) from February 17th was when I starting thinking this will be a big thing (and when I should have pulled out some of my 401K money). Even if the virus never spread outside of China, it was apparent that it would impact major portions of the world-wide economy. ---
**Author:** ![SayTwo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e56c9b/32.png) [@SayTwo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SayTwo)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2020, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anybody-see-this-coming/851343/47 "2020-04-09T03:34:28Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > You know, if W could figure that out for himself, nobody gets a pass on saying, “Nobody could have known.” > > Stranger Is that a shot at W? ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2020, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anybody-see-this-coming/851343/48 "2020-04-09T03:49:49Z")
I’ve posted this before, but while I was aware of it fairly early on, my Taiwanese friends were much more concerned because of their experience with SARS. I like W’s analogy with forest fires. ---
**Author:** ![flatlined](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/eb9ed0/32.png) [@flatlined](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flatlined)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2020, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anybody-see-this-coming/851343/49 "2020-04-09T03:56:29Z")
I started worrying in January. In February, I turned into Cassandra “Bad times are coming, better get ready!”. About the beginning of March, I turned into the Ancient Mariner, grabbing people by their collars and demanding that they listen to me. Par levels on all of our supplies were stocked and then over filled. I wanted 80\_something MIL to come and stay for the duration, but she had other plans and poo-pooed my concerns. My spouse rolled his eyes, but used it as an excuse to buy more guns and ammo. We have enough TP and paper towels that I was able to fill a box and send to MIL without worrying about shorting our home. I would much rather that folks could continue making fun of us preppers than have this happen. And while I knew it was going to be bad, I had no idea it was going to be this BAD. ---
**Author:** ![squeegee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/squeegee/32/14537_2.png) [@squeegee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squeegee)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2020, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anybody-see-this-coming/851343/50 "2020-04-09T04:00:43Z")
> [@SayTwo](#): > > Is that a shot at W? No, it’s a shot at anyone saying this was something unpredictable. ---
**Author:** ![SayTwo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e56c9b/32.png) [@SayTwo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SayTwo)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2020, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anybody-see-this-coming/851343/51 "2020-04-09T04:26:46Z")
> [@squeegee](#): > > No, it’s a shot at anyone saying this was something unpredictable. Ah, I see. I thought it was something like ‘if even that guy could see it, then everyone should be able to see it’. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2020, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anybody-see-this-coming/851343/52 "2020-04-09T04:34:11Z")
I was caught unawares by both the number of deaths and the shocking speed. I blame myself. All the signs were there. Years ago when I followed the news more seriously I would have picked up on it sooner. Then one morning I woke up and saw that over seven hundred people died in Italy in a single day. Only then did I begin to understand the size of this disaster. ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2020, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anybody-see-this-coming/851343/53 "2020-04-09T04:48:45Z")
I have been following this since January thinking it was going to get very bad. I didn’t really take any action until the last week of February when I removed the small amount of money I have in the stock market and stocked up on non-perishables (plus other products including toilet paper)–not a lot, just a two to three months stockpile. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2020, 7:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anybody-see-this-coming/851343/54 "2020-04-09T07:01:09Z")
I was worried about it before most people, partly because I am a huge fan of the Soderbergh movie. But I got into a really big thing with my kids’ principal about his policy of high-fiving every kid entering the school. :smack: Then a couple weeks later they were closed altogether. But I would be surprised if anyone could beat this guy. Steve Silberman (whose book my wife bought years ago) tweeted in May 2017: > > > Jamie Vernon 🇺🇸🔬🧬⚾️ @JLVernonPhD > [@](#): > > Trump’s Katrina will be a deadly pandemic. That’s…pretty good. ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2020, 7:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anybody-see-this-coming/851343/55 "2020-04-09T07:16:13Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > But I would be surprised if anyone could beat this guy. Steve Silberman (whose book my wife bought years ago) tweeted in May 2017: > > [https://twitter.com/stevesilberman/status/860595784424620034?s=21](https://twitter.com/stevesilberman/status/860595784424620034?s=21) March 15th, 2016, Art Caplan: [Details a scenario where a China started pandemic plays out under Trump](https://thehealthcareblog.com/blog/2016/03/15/the-end-of-civilization-and-the-real-donald-trump/) ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2020, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anybody-see-this-coming/851343/56 "2020-04-09T12:19:13Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > You know, if W could figure that out for himself, nobody gets a pass on saying, “Nobody could have known.” Well, Bush likes to read and doesn’t suffer from Dunning-Kruger. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2020, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anybody-see-this-coming/851343/57 "2020-04-09T22:33:59Z")
> [@Shalmanese](#): > > March 15th, 2016, Art Caplan: [Details a scenario where a China started pandemic plays out under Trump](https://thehealthcareblog.com/blog/2016/03/15/the-end-of-civilization-and-the-real-donald-trump/) That’s pretty good, although it’s interesting to note that it seems reversed in many ways: despite there being only “hundreds of deaths” (which truly would be a fairly small death toll compared to the seasonal flu), Trump overreacts and tries to implement forced quarantines that states and localities resist. Although it’s later, Silberman’s 2017 prediction of a pandemic being “Trump’s Katrina” (which implies doing too little in the face of mass devastation) seems closer to the target. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2020, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anybody-see-this-coming/851343/58 "2020-04-10T21:11:05Z")
> [@Sean\_the\_Dog](#): > > I’m not talking about politicians or governments (who are supposed to predict how to keep us safe), I’m mean us average people. > > I saw bits and pieces of what was happening in China on the news but didn’t pay much attention. I also skimmed over it in the paper, but again didn’t pay much attention. When Covid-19 hit British Columbia, I wondered how long it would take to get here, the other side of the country, from the West Coast to the best Coast. > > Then my supervisor at work calls on Saturday, March 14, to tell me work is going to minimum manning for at least three weeks. Good thing I was there to take the call or I would have thought it was a joke. It still took a few days before I realized it wasn’t just us, and how things had changed regarding social distancing and self-isolation. > > There was nothing like this for SARS that I recall, not even in hard hit Toronto. AIDS had no such response. > > Am I the only one caught off-guard by all this? > > * * * > > “Stay the blazes home” - Stephen McNeil, Premier of Nova Scotia I think I saw this coming in late January early February. I talked to enough Koreans to know this was a big deal back then. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2020, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anybody-see-this-coming/851343/59 "2020-04-11T01:24:20Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > I guess for me, I didn’t realize how different from SARS it was. Since we were able to keep SARS under control I figured we could do it for COVID19. I didn’t know that SARS only became contagious after you showed symptoms, but COVID19 could be spread for days or weeks before symptoms, and something like 1/5 of people are asymptomatic carriers. This. And actually a lot of the public advice was saying well into March that transmission from asymptomatic people was rare. I didn’t start thinking there might really be a problem in the USA until early March. I’ve known for a long time, theoretically, that a bad pandemic could do a huge amount of damage; but the early coverage didn’t incline me to think that this was significantly different from SARS or Ebola, both of which were brought under control without world wide emergency measures. ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2020, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anybody-see-this-coming/851343/60 "2020-04-11T02:40:23Z")
Channel News Asia posted their 100Th straight day of covid coverage today. Both thorough and extensive from the beginning, coverage mapping it’s every step through Asia and out into the rest of the world. it was clear it would be a pandemic, even in early days. If you’d been reading a single SEAsian news source, wide coverage was literally everywhere. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anybody-see-this-coming/851343.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anybody-see-this-coming/851343.md?page=4)