1/THREAD: WHEN WAS IT CLEAR?

Feb. 8, 2020: The purpose of this thread is to document and timestamp when it first became clear that nCov was likely to lead to a global pandemic.

The purpose is to give something to cite when ppl later claim "But there was NO WAY OF KNOWING..."

2/I'm sure plenty of people smarter than me had this all figured out in early January, but to my thinking, the week of Jan. 27 is when it first became crystal clear that this is a really big deal, and that media reporting was out of touch with reality.

3/ It was afternoon of Jan. 27 when I first saw the Jan. 24 Lancet report and figured out this was really serious. I published my first podcast on the subject on Jan. 28.

But it was the China Academy of Sciences report published Jan. 29 that really marks the moment in time when

4/ ...it first became crystal clear that we have a really serious problem that will be very difficult to contain and that a global pandemic was very likely.

I didn't become aware of that report until Jan. 31. Several things became clear and formed a "perfect storm" at that time.

5/ The "perfect storm" is 1) asymptomatic transmission making containment nearly impossible, 2) extreme transmissivity (R0 estimated 4.08 in that paper) and 3) CFR much higher than seasonal flu and other relatively tame diseases.

@DrEricDing commented on that report and opined

6/ that the R0 analysis looked solid but that their 6.5% CFR was suspect and lower was likely. But even so, this cemented in my mind that all the ingredients existed for a global pandemic. Perhaps not as deadly as SARS on a % death rate basis, but very likely MUCH worse in terms

7/ of total death toll because it would be much harder to contain and more transmissive.

Media was OUT TO LUNCH. @chrismartenson published a vid on that report and was promptly ridiculed by @business and had his Wikipedia page taken down after being labeled a quack.

8/ To summarize, it was over the course of the week of Jan. 27-31 that it went from "pretty clear" to "resoundingly clear" that 2019-nCoV was likely to develop to a global pandemic affecting millions of not tens of millions of people around the globe.

9/ So for sake of round numbers, I'm going to declare Feb 1, 2020 as the date by which it was CRYSTAL CLEAR to anyone paying close attention that nCoV was anything but "just a bad flu"--what the media were still reporting at the time.

This thread posted only 1 week later stands

10/ as evidence of the chronology. If you are reading this months into the future and you thought "But nobody could EVER have predicted what was coming back then", you're wrong. By Feb. 1st it was WAY PAST CLEAR to everyone actually paying attention that we have a really serious

11/ problem. As of this thread (Feb. 8), we are still being ridiculed and called "fear mongers", and the media continues to tell everyone to relax because there's nothing to worry about. BUT IT WAS CRYSTAL CLEAR BY FEB. 1st WHAT WAS COMING.

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END THREAD

12/ ADDENDUM Feb 9:

I want to acknowledge that quite a few people figured this out the week of Jan. 20th, i.e. one full week before I did.

So what was coming was clear to a handful of very smart people by Jan. 20 and RESOUNDINGLY clear to anyone paying attention by Feb. 1.