We all make mistakes. We know we make mistakes. I don't know any military commander, who is honest, who would say he has not made a mistake. There's a wonderful phrase: 'the fog of war.' What "the fog of war" means is: war is so complex it's beyond the ability of the human mind to comprehend all the variables. Our judgment, our understanding, are not adequate. And we kill people unnecessarilyRobert McNamara
Carl Von Clausewitz in "On War" noted that all action takes place, so to speak, in a kind of twilight, which, like fog or moonlight, often tends to make things seem grotesque and larger than they really are. Its where the term "fog of war" came from, though Clausewitz did not use that term. We are fighting this war in this fog. Yes, things can go worse or better. As far as this Cornavirus is concerned although highly transmissible, the case fatality rate of COVID-19 appears to be lower than that of Middle East respiratory syndrome (34·4%) and of SARS (9·5%) but higher than that of influenza (0·1%). I think we will end up somewhere closer to the latter figure than the former as our knowledge of the disease grows. I think markets will be very volatile in the next couple of months as society figures it out and starts to calibrate its response.
Humanity is currently at war with the Coronavirus. A debate is currently raging are we doing too little, are we doing too much?
A key question policymakers are grappling with is, is the cure worse than the disease? Is a bandwagon effect and/or a domino effect taking place. Are the "shelter in place" directives and shutdowns making things overall worse? If the shutdown lasts for months will the economic fallout and health effects from the mortality and morbidity of despair dwarf the morbidity and mortalility caused by the virus?
