The article makes it sound like BlueDot is some kind of advanced AI capable of sifting through the tea-leaves of news and alerting the world of a possible pandemic well in advance of official, governmental organisations.
But at least in the case of COVID-19, the truth appears to be that BlueDot was not that much faster than a properly functioning bureaucratic machine.
BlueDot: the article says BlueDot sent an alert of unusual pneumonia on 30 Dec 2019.
Properly functioning bureaucratic machine: WHO received info about a possible new outbreak of some sort from the Chinese government on 31 Dec 2019. Taiwan, a non-WHO member (and which is politically and socially inclined not to trust China on anything), reacted immediately to the news and began monitoring passengers coming from Wuhan on that day [0]. In Singapore, the health authority sent out an advisory regarding this potential new outbreak on 2 Jan - essentially the first day everyone got back to work after the new year celebrations [1] - and announced traveller screening measures. Hong Kong stepped up border screening immediately, too [2].
I dunno... I feel like the knowledge would not have been disseminated usefully faster in this case.
If anything, the important takeaway is not that we should have been alerted faster, but rather how important it is that government institutions are funded, function, and are staffed by competent individuals.
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The article makes it sound like BlueDot is some kind of advanced AI capable of sifting through the tea-leaves of news and alerting the world of a possible pandemic well in advance of official, governmental organisations.
But at least in the case of COVID-19, the truth appears to be that BlueDot was not that much faster than a properly functioning bureaucratic machine.
BlueDot: the article says BlueDot sent an alert of unusual pneumonia on 30 Dec 2019.
Properly functioning bureaucratic machine: WHO received info about a possible new outbreak of some sort from the Chinese government on 31 Dec 2019. Taiwan, a non-WHO member (and which is politically and socially inclined not to trust China on anything), reacted immediately to the news and began monitoring passengers coming from Wuhan on that day [0]. In Singapore, the health authority sent out an advisory regarding this potential new outbreak on 2 Jan - essentially the first day everyone got back to work after the new year celebrations [1] - and announced traveller screening measures. Hong Kong stepped up border screening immediately, too [2].
I dunno... I feel like the knowledge would not have been disseminated usefully faster in this case.
If anything, the important takeaway is not that we should have been alerted faster, but rather how important it is that government institutions are funded, function, and are staffed by competent individuals.
[0] https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/7/20-0574_article [1] https://www.moh.gov.sg/news-highlights/details/precautionary... [2] https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3044050/mys...