As calamities from another variant of Covid19 is looming large, the omicron, be prepared for more confusing news in the coming days. It is also the right time to introduce the word risk. Risk has a specific technical meaning. It is the product of the likelihood of something to happen and the consequence.
Risk = likelihood x consequence.
Compare the delta variant with ones that came earlier. From the data, anecdotal evidence by individuals and evolutionary arguments, it became the public narrative that the consequence of infection with delta was similar to, or even mildly less dangerous. Did it mean the same for the risk? We can’t say until we know the likelihood. Delta turned out to be more than double as contagious as earlier ones. So the overall risk was much more than the first.
The second common argument was the case fatality rate. The CFR, as it is commonly known, was not high, they argued, but forgetting that almost a third of humanity was going to get it. A small fraction of a large number is still sizeable.
Black Swan Event
An extreme example of risk is the black swan event – a concept introduced by Nassim Nicholas Taleb through his book that carried the same name. These are unpredictable events and has infinite consequences.
Was the Covid pandemic a black swan event? As per the author himself, it was not a black swan event. People had predicted viruses attacks like these, and there were, however hypothetical, opportunities to control the disease at its onset, had there been a few steps taken by the originating country – be it intervention at the start or by just being more transparent.
But September 11 was one of them. It was never anticipated, and the consequence was enormous and far-reaching.
Covid19 and Black Swan
