Chernobyl Came Back As Bat Virus: History Doesn't Repeat But It Rhymes.

"To report that 15,000-30,000 people have died, when the actual number is 56, represents a big error.     (snip)      The greatest damage to the people of Chernobyl was caused by bad information. These people weren’t blighted by radiation so much as by terrifying but false information."   [Michael Crichton  Fear, Complexity, & Environmental Management]

US Coronavirus deaths were modelled at 1.7 million, then at 270,000 or so, then at 100,000 and now less again.  The original high number has sort of faded from the news.  The plan to flatten the curve has sort of faded too, now that emergency rooms are underutilized, but the lockdowns and 'alarums' persist.   The story editing has all happened in the last ten weeks.

Apparently against every Coronavirus death it makes sense to write off hundreds of millions of dollars, disregard individual rights and call for extreme measures.  Last year, 34,000 people in the US died from Influenza A and B but a few million dollars at most was spent that year against those deaths. People went about their lives with fewer edicts handed down from experts armed with models and armed with political beliefs as well.  Very smart people can be very wrong.  Sometimes knowing how smart you are insulates you from self examination.

Back to Michael Crichton:

Is this really the end of the world? Earthquakes, hurricanes, floods? (and pandemics [ed]) No, we simply live on an active planet. Earthquakes are continuous, a million and a half of them every year, or three every minute. A Richter 5 quake every six hours, a major quake every 3 weeks. A quake as destructive as the one in Pakistan every 8 months. It’s nothing new, it’s right on schedule. At any moment there are 1,500 electrical storms on the planet. A tornado touches down every six hours. We have ninety hurricanes a year, or one every four days.

That reference to Chernobyl?  I also read the book Midnight in Chernobyl, not relying on the Chrichton quote.