EA funders have funded various organisations working on biosecurity and pandemic preparedness, including:
- John Hopkins Center for Health Security
- Georgetown Center for Global Health Science and Security
- Center for International Security and Cooperation Biosecurity Initiative
- Nuclear Threat Initiative
- Blue Ribbon Study Panel on Biodefense
It seems to be widely accepted that many mainstream institutions got important things about COVID wrong, such as masks, travel bans, and lockdowns. Have there been any reviews of how these and other EA-funded things performed on COVID-related matters, with the benefit of hindsight?
A few minutes later, he said:
He also said wearing masks would be going overboard in response to a question if people should buy masks. He said he travelled internationally "yesterday" (which would have been February 9th if the video was uploaded the day of the lecture) and didn't wear a mask. He said he saw people wearing masks with their noses out or with masks around their neck (implying it wouldn't be effective to tell people to wear masks?) and also that it's uncomfortable to wear an N95 for too long, so he wouldn't recommend the general public to wear a mask unless sick (in which case "maybe" they should wear a surgical mask).
I think his prediction and advice should probably be judged negatively and reflect poorly on him / Center for Health Security, but I'm not sure how harshly he/ CHS should be judged.
Edit: Also, at 42:10 he said "I do think that it's not containable in any country, it just appears to be so now." I think this was also wrong, since clearly some countries have managed to avoid major outbreaks.
This seems totally okay to me, FWIW. In most places (e.g., London or the US), it would have seemed a bit overly cautious to wear masks before the end of February, no?
I generally agree with that, but it's worth noting that it was extremely common for Western epidemiologists to repeat the mantra "you cannot do what Asian countries are doing; there's no way to contain the virus."