I woke up and started working on finishing revisions to my book. As I was making coffee I finally realized why these times are so stressful. It's because of the variable I have insisted on for months: UNCERTAINTY.

You all may have read the distributions of "infected", "ill",

"will require hospitalization", "will require ICU", "will require ventilation". Because of what's been reported in Wuhan and the Princess cruise is taken as a basis, a lot of people talk about the 80-15-5 (80% of mild, asymptomatic cases, 15 cases need hospitalization, 5% in ICU)

There are some assessments about percentage of deaths.

BUT WE FUCKING DO NOT KNOW.

We don't.

Each case is different.

I keep reading about entirely healthy people who one day are ok, next day are in the ICU, one week later they're dead.

You can't make inferences right now.

This virus does NOT behave in the same way as others. It's not SARS, it's not MERS, it's not influenza. It's something worse. MUCH worse. And there's still a metric tonne of uncertainty surrounding it. That's why we're having the mask vs no mask discussion. That's why people...

... have hoarded toilet paper, and hydroxychloroquine. That's why people aren't sheltering-at-home when they potentially could.

There's still so much uncertainty around COVID-19 that we cannot make life decisions simply because we have so much incomplete information.

During my PhD, I took courses on decision analysis, multicriteria decision-making, decision-making under uncertainty, risk analysis. I devoured everything from Paul Slovic to Robin Gregory to Terre Satterfield to Sheila Jassanof to Jeanne Kasperson to Roger Kasperson.

I know the literature on social amplification of risk, the risk society of Ulrich Beck, how to do MCDM. But NOTHING, seriously, nothing I read or studied has prepared me to live with this extreme degree of uncertainty.

When will things get back to normal?

Newsflash: NEVER.