It's not only do you believe the warning, it's do you believe the scale of the warning.
Given we know of many such pandemics, it's ignorant not to know others WILL happen. What we don't know is the scale. It's also easy to generate computer models that show 10s of millions dead. That's not impossible but unlikely.
I could also provide "proof" that global warming will devastate the planet. There is a super volcano under Yellowstone that could destroy large areas and create a global winter from ash in the atmosphere. There is the possibility that an enormous asteroid could destroy the planet or do catastrophic damage. We have had storms that destroyed regions of the Country many years ago that we haven't recovered from and more WILL come.
All these threats, and others, are "real" and we could spend all our time and assets preparing for them because that is what it would take to be "ready". Even being ready doesn't mean that we could stop any of them, just mitigate to some degree. Further, we will probably never see the events to the extreme of the scale.
Meanwhile, life would become drudgery working and waiting for disaster.
That's not to say we should do nothing. Bad viruses come along somewhat frequently. Governments had recently decided to stockpile some medical supplies but decided it was too expensive and sold them off or let them rot to the point of being unusable. That was probably not too wise. Maybe they should be cycling supplies through storage to keep them fresh and determining how to maintain ventilators more economically. There would be some cost to that. Maybe it is worth it. Maybe instead of doing things like this behind the scenes it should be a more public discussion. Not a panicked discussion with tales of woe but a realistic balance of cost vs. benefit and better ways to do things.
Will we ever be prepared for an asteroid strike, even though people regularly encourage us to be? I doubt it and I doubt we should. We could continue to watch for dangerous sky objects and consider how they might be deflected. But if you are a car stuck on the train tracks, how do you "prepare" for being hit by a locomotive? And how likely is it to happen?
|