On 11 March Chancellor Merkel warned that the SARS-CoV-2 – the virus for the COVID-19 – could infect between 60 and 70% of Germany’s population (DW, “Coronavirus: Germany’s Angela Merkel urges ‘solidarity and reason‘”, 11 March 2020). She was accused to spread panic (Ibid.). Chancellor Merkel’s point was to highlight the very real danger Germans …
Continue reading “Worst Case Baseline Scenarios for the COVID-19 Pandemic”
As the COVID-19 spreads throughout the world, its cascading and multiple impacts deepen. As a result, fear spreads. Meanwhile, finance and business firms now started promoting the idea that the COVID-19 epidemic was a “black swan event”. For example, Goldman Sachs, in its Top of Mind, issue 86 (February 28, 2020) featured an article titled …
Continue reading “Why the COVID-19 is NOT a Black Swan Event”
On 11 March, the WHO characterised the COVID-19 as a pandemic. The probability to see the WHO, finally, accepting the label had been rising everyday. Indeed, we have witnessed the proliferation of clusters and outbreaks globally, that led to the emergence of multiple epidemic centres. Since we first published this article, the pandemic intensified. On …
Scenarios regarding the future of the COVID-19 epidemic outbreak in China and globally vary wildly (David Cyranoski, “When will the coronavirus outbreak peak?“, Nature, 18 February 2020). The estimates go from the outbreak peaking at the end of February 2020 to months away with millions infected (Ibid.). The WHO Director-General stressed the necessity to remain …
The coronavirus epidemic is “a very grave threat” because “Viruses can have more powerful consequences than any terrorist action”. This is what the WHO Director stressed as an international meeting of 400 scientists and other experts convened in Geneva (Sarah Boseley, “Coronavirus should be seen as ‘public enemy number one’, says WHO“, The Guardian, 11 …
Continue reading “The Coronavirus COVID-19 Epidemic Outbreak is Not Only about a New Virus”
The new Coronavirus 2019-nCoV epidemic outbreak is a mystery. Indeed, since it became a concern in China at the end of December 2019 and in the early days of January 2020 (WHO timeline), the various actors and authorities involved have been sending contradictory signals regarding the outbreak. This is perplexing, and all the more so …
Continue reading “The New Coronavirus COVID-19 Mystery – Fact-Checking”
The “new Coronavirus COVID-19 epidemic outbreak” became the COVID-19 pandemic. With time we learn more about the SARS-CoV-2 (the virus), the COVID-19 (the disease) and its multiple components and impacts. As a result, we must continue to closely monitor it, using the best possible ressources available. All actors should also develop scenarios to make sure …
Continue reading “Resources to monitor the COVID-19 Pandemic”
(Credit Image: Pierre Markuse, CC BY 2.0) The global wildfire is engulfing the world. Throughout 2019, immense swaths of Australia, California, Alaska, Russia, central Africa, and the Amazon basin, were part of this immense bonfire. This conflagration took place after the historic fire seasons of 2018, 2017, 2016… (David Wallace Wells, The Uninhabitable Earth, Life …
AI, AI Everywhere The Artificial Intelligence field (AI) is creating a continuity that encompasses climate change science and the preparedness of the U.S. military to climate risks. This continuity appears through the central role of AI in two apparently disconnected foresight civilian and military uses. AI and climate science Climate Central published in Nature a …
Continue reading “Artificial Intelligence, climate change and the U.S military”
The strange case of the disappearing report In August 2019, the Centre for Climate and Security published an article about a recent publication by the U.S Army War College. The document, entitled “Implications of Climate change for the U.S Army”, however, cannot be found anymore on the “publications” page of the U.S Army War College. …
