by The news is as bad as it can be. Our most dependable indicator, people dying from Corona, suggest an exponential rate of growth of over 10%. Per day. Actually: 14%. In a little over 2 weeks, 20.000 people will die. At least. Per day. If we do nothing. The news is as good as it can be. High biotech companies are developing fast track tests at an unbelievable rate while the government offices which (rightly) have to approve these are working around the clock to do this. Korea will soon export 300.000 tests a week. That’s not enough to meet global demand. But if humankind has become good at anything it is at producing incredible amounts of stuff at an incredible speed. Tests, ventilators, masks – these will come. A million tests a day is feasible. And needed. But other news is dire.
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The news is as bad as it can be. Our most dependable indicator, people dying from Corona, suggest an exponential rate of growth of over 10%. Per day. Actually: 14%. In a little over 2 weeks, 20.000 people will die. At least. Per day. If we do nothing.
The news is as good as it can be. High biotech companies are developing fast track tests at an unbelievable rate while the government offices which (rightly) have to approve these are working around the clock to do this. Korea will soon export 300.000 tests a week. That’s not enough to meet global demand. But if humankind has become good at anything it is at producing incredible amounts of stuff at an incredible speed. Tests, ventilators, masks – these will come. A million tests a day is feasible. And needed.
But other news is dire. Efficient production chain kind of thinking in the medical sector means that supplies of beds, ventilators, nose swabs and whatever have already run out. We will produce these, production of masks and ventilators is already ramped up. Are these ‘just in time’ stocks a market failing? No, they are a government failing (albeit not in Asian countries which learned from SARS). In many countries, like Brasil and the USA, the ‘takers and looters’ have taken command. BAD!
What we need is of governments guiding the way, paying costs while at the same time taking care of moral hazard and racketeering and taking care of public health tracking and tracing measures and companies doing what they do best: producing stuff. As some Asian countries show: this can be done.