According
to I24news, the US warned Israel
about COVID-19 in mid-November, 2019:
“The
information was also handed over to the White House, 'which did not deem it of
interest'
The US
government reportedly gave Israel advanced warning over the emerging threat the
coronavirus posed in China around mid-November.
According
to Israeli broadcaster Channel 12, US intelligence agencies became aware of the
danger posed by COVID-19 as it battered the central city of Wuhan in China's
Hubei province.
The
information was then handed over to the White House, “which did not deem it of
interest,” according to Channel 12
Despite
the Trump administration's dismissal of the information, US intelligence
decided to warn its close allies of the contagious disease, specifically NATO
and Israel.”
So Trump, Boris Johnson and Netanyahu had the same information in
mid-November, 2019 and yet Bibi reacted much better than both Trump and Boris
Johnson and imposed stricter restrictions early on. Why such a different
reaction?
I
think that the main difference is that Bibi has a more technical background (he’s
got a Master of Science degree from MIT) whereas Boris Johnson studied humanities
at Oxford and Trump has a bachelor’s degree in economics from the Wharton school.
So
how does this matter? It matters in that I think Bibi was probably
more responsive to the scientists’ advice to impose strict sanctions early on since
he felt and fully understood the way
exponential functions like y = e**x work,
and the significance on imposing restrictions early on while
there are only a few cases and that waiting would have huge
consequences.
Both Boris Johnson and Trump did not seem to understand
that. From The
Guardian: “Prominent US public health adviser Dr Anthony Fauci appeared
on Sunday to confirm a bombshell New York Times report which said he and other Trump administration officials
recommended the implementation of physical distancing to combat the coronavirus
in February, but were rebuffed for almost a month.”
In Boris Johnson’s case it seems that there had been a disconnect between the scientists who were advising him and the
cabinet, and that the scientists failed to convey the danger of the initial
goal of reaching herd immunity.
It was only after the
publication of the Imperial
College London Report published on March 16 that both Trump and Boris
Johnson changed policies, but by then they had already lost precious time.
I believe that
understanding math played a role in this case. Here is a reminder:
And just now on the 9 o’clock
news, Bibi
consulted epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch whose podcast from Feb 28, which I heard on March 5 (and transcribed), gave me the right understanding of the
magnitude of the problem. We in Israel are being well
informed!
So Israel is in the best position of the three countries and
has 10 times less death per 1 M than the UK and 5 times less deaths per 1 M than
the US, is testing twice as much as the US and three times as much as the UK.
Data as of April 19, 2020 from https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
