Remember we had 2 dozen patient zeros with SARS (people who came into the country sick) and no patient ones (people who caught it in America). Clearly we did a pretty good job fighting it. And plenty of others. Covid caught us a little hairy but the norm is that these bugs don’t do nearly as much damage in America as the rest of the world. Because we know stuff. And we know that stuff cause we work with these things pretty constantly.
“Remember we had 2 dozen patient zeros with SARS (people who came into the country sick) and no patient ones (people who caught it in America). Clearly we did a pretty good job fighting it.”
SARS was fought using the principles of epidemiology, isolating patients and tracking contacts. That’s been known for over 100 years. It wasn’t fought using things learned from studying that particular corona virus in the lab prior to the outbreak. There is value in learning about viral biology but it doesnt have to be done with NOVEL extremely virulent human pathogens. Viruses are simple things and what you learn from weak human pathogens or even animal pathogens will be applicable to other Corona viruses. Once a virus has caused an outbreak in humans (like SARS) it SHOULD be studied since it has a higher likelihood of re-emerging.