Comment by davidgerard
4 days ago
I worked at the British Medical Journal at the time. We got wind of COVID being a big thing in January. I spent January to March to get our new VPN into a fit state that the whole company could do their whole jobs from home. 23 March was lockdown and we were ready and had a very busy year.
That COVID was going to be big was obvious to a lot of people and groups who were paying attention. We were a health-related org, but we were extremely far from unique in this.
The rationalist claim that they were uniquely on the ball and everyone else dropped it is just a marketing lie.
I recall friends who worked for Google telling me that they instituted WFH for all employees from the start of March. I also remember a call with a co-worker in January/February who had a PhD in epidemiology (not a "rationalist" afaik); I couldn't believe what he was saying about the likelihood of a months-long lockdown in the West.
The first time I read about covid, was in a (printed) computer magazine as a side note about government oppression in China. At that time I didn't even memorized the name, because I just didn't heard about it from any other source.
I don't think anyone said they were unique? I was countering a claim that they just agreed with the WHO.