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Something I have been pondering: what information is our COVID-19 response giving to our adversaries? 1/x
Let’s say China, Russia, or some smaller rogue nation like North Korea or Syria are working on biological warfare R&D. As a practical concern they wonder about the effectiveness of whatever they might develop if they target the US. Might be high effort/cost with low reward. 2/x
Our response right now might affect that thinking. Foreign nations are seeing that our current federal government is unwilling to react swiftly or take necessary steps to address and contain. 3/x
Not only that, but there is discord about containment measures, and active resistance and backlash to those measures. Many people are pushing a narrative that the virus is not serious, or that containment measures are freedom-restricting. 4/x
They are learning that the distrust in government and science by a large chunk of the citizenry extends to basic health measures. Critical care doctors, virologists and epidemiologists can talk until they are blue in the face but there are people that just won’t listen. 5/x
In the face of a crisis, some are willing to damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead even when the dangers have not passed. Then they run into a mine field. These actions are explicitly or implicitly endorsed by the person at the head of the federal government. 6/x
So a foreign adversary might be learning: a biological agent doesn’t have to be extremely deadly to be effective. Less potent agents have the ability to disrupt our economy and our society while causing substantial political and societal schisms. 7/x
I don’t think COVID-19 was developed as a biological agent, but for this analysis it doesn’t need to be. Adversaries see how the dominoes fall if they push the first one. They are learning a virus won’t be swatted down harmlessly and might have longevity as a disruptor. 8/x
Russia experimented in 2016 with a thorough online disinformation campaign to affect our electoral politics; I’m sure they took the lesson that it is worth their time and effort to try similar things in the future. 9/x
I am afraid that our adversaries might be learning unleashing a biologic weapon that has a 1-4% fatality rate would similarly be worth their time if they make the effort. We are being tested and we are failing. 10/x
My hope is that diseases that thread the needle of transmissibility and damage like COVID-19 does are hard to come by, and that when the next one comes along there is better leadership in place to combat it. 11/END.
