If a new pandemic emerged abroad in the near future do you think the government would respond differently?

[Chickenandrice]

I worry about the prospect of a virus emerging that has a much worse cfr. some virus can have 10 - 50 % cfr which would cause chaos in society. I really hope if this happens the government will have learned to shut borders immediately and implement full lockdowns straight away or whatever is necessary to get a grip on virus before it spreads. If you look at other countries such as Vietnam who have contained things so well whereas we have just allowed it to spread until the public are now almost giving up on the restrictions in place. We need to learn from other countries next time.

You would hope they'd learn, but watching the rise of cases in the second wave, it doesn't look like many governments are applying the lessons of the first wave even to this one.

And sadly, you're right - we actually got off lightly with the CFR for covid which is something round the 0.5 to 1% level. Even for other coronaviruses, for SARS it's about 10% and for MERS more like 30% (which is one of the reasons East Asian countries put the time and effort into developing such good track and trace systems - they learned from SARS).

Not doing great with the second wave, so no.

Yes we did get “lucky” with the cfr. Bird flu apparently has 50% cfr which would be so awful. I just dread to think that the government might just sit and wait to see what happens before reacting. Planes still coming in for weeks importing the virus. I hope they are developing better strategies for the next one.

Think it best to worry about this one first.

But they were talking on radio about a potentially more lethal virus pandemic. Maybe temperature checks at all airports in all countries will become part of travel.

This government? Honestly I think they would quietly ban any news reporting on the subject, lock themselves away and let it sweep through the population.

A government with two brain cells to rub together between them, I think/hope would take lessons learned and implement tighter rules earlier

There is also the chance the next virus could start here and we need to not export it to others.

No I don't. The outrage from those missing holidays was quite clear. And of course the airlines bring so much into the economy.