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When you're in a situation where the severity of the outcome doubles every 4 days and you do not have clear information about where the curve will break, underreacting will result in extremely bad outcomes much much much more often than overreacting

For a simplified example just compare the cost of taking actions that make you break the curve 4 days too early with the situation where you break the curve 4 days too late

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> When you're in a situation where the severity of the outcome doubles every 4 days and you do not have clear information about where the curve will break, underreacting will result in extremely bad outcomes much much much more often than overreacting

> For a simplified example just compare the cost of taking actions that make you break the curve 4 days too early with the situation where you break the curve 4 days too late

But does it seem that implausible that cooler heads might find a solution that doesn't cost at least $20 trillion?

It seems obvious that the US could have handled it so much better and cheaper if they had not kept ignoring the situation in China and then Italy (which made Europe wake up)

But even in the situation the US is now, doing something, anything, now. Might still be a lot better than the alternative

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