<story><title>Covid-19 is now officially a pandemic, WHO says</title><url>https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/03/11/814474930/coronavirus-covid-19-is-now-officially-a-pandemic-who-says</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mikestew</author><text>See also: Y2K.&lt;p&gt;I don’t say that lightly. That was 20 years ago, so maybe you youngsters just read about it in books. But in summary, a bunch of us busted ass to make sure the predictions of ATM and power failures did not come to pass on 1&amp;#x2F;1&amp;#x2F;2000. Our reward was, “See? We got all up in arms about nothing.”&lt;p&gt;Plenty of those same short-sighted dipshits are still alive, and of those now deceased, I’m sure replacements are just reaching voting age.&lt;p&gt;That’s assuming the U. S. puts forth anything close to the effort of fixing Y2K. Which is not even remotely guaranteed.</text></item><item><author>fokinsean</author><text>Playing Devil&amp;#x27;s advocate, but if the situation does fizzle out in the US due to active measures, people will likely look back and say how it &amp;quot;ended up not being a big deal&amp;quot;.</text></item><item><author>beamatronic</author><text>Curious if anyone has tried to look on the bright side, and see where humanity will be in the long run.&lt;p&gt;1.  Will take infectious disease more seriously&lt;p&gt;2.  Will build out health care infrastructure to guard against future occurrences&lt;p&gt;3.  Personal sanitation will be improved&lt;p&gt;4.  People less likely to take risky behaviors like getting together in huge groups&lt;p&gt;edit:  formatting</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>corel_</author><text>I also was around for this but my favourite thing about it wasn&amp;#x27;t the resignation of &amp;quot;it wasn&amp;#x27;t a big deal&amp;quot; from the public but the mockery of people at the time talking about 2038 as alarmist nutjobs.  It was not going to be a issue in 2038 because we&amp;#x27;d all be running 64 bit quantum computers by then.&lt;p&gt;18 years away now and an absolute ton of affected systems are still out there and mission critical.&lt;p&gt;These type pf issues, from Corona to 2038 to climate change, always remind me of that Homer Simpson quote.&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Pfft, that&amp;#x27;s a problem for future Homer.  Man I don&amp;#x27;t envy that guy.&amp;quot;</text></comment>
<story><title>Covid-19 is now officially a pandemic, WHO says</title><url>https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/03/11/814474930/coronavirus-covid-19-is-now-officially-a-pandemic-who-says</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mikestew</author><text>See also: Y2K.&lt;p&gt;I don’t say that lightly. That was 20 years ago, so maybe you youngsters just read about it in books. But in summary, a bunch of us busted ass to make sure the predictions of ATM and power failures did not come to pass on 1&amp;#x2F;1&amp;#x2F;2000. Our reward was, “See? We got all up in arms about nothing.”&lt;p&gt;Plenty of those same short-sighted dipshits are still alive, and of those now deceased, I’m sure replacements are just reaching voting age.&lt;p&gt;That’s assuming the U. S. puts forth anything close to the effort of fixing Y2K. Which is not even remotely guaranteed.</text></item><item><author>fokinsean</author><text>Playing Devil&amp;#x27;s advocate, but if the situation does fizzle out in the US due to active measures, people will likely look back and say how it &amp;quot;ended up not being a big deal&amp;quot;.</text></item><item><author>beamatronic</author><text>Curious if anyone has tried to look on the bright side, and see where humanity will be in the long run.&lt;p&gt;1.  Will take infectious disease more seriously&lt;p&gt;2.  Will build out health care infrastructure to guard against future occurrences&lt;p&gt;3.  Personal sanitation will be improved&lt;p&gt;4.  People less likely to take risky behaviors like getting together in huge groups&lt;p&gt;edit:  formatting</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>badsectoracula</author><text>LGR had a great Y2K video where he presented what the problem was: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=Xm5OiB3CPxg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=Xm5OiB3CPxg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;In short, it was &lt;i&gt;massively&lt;/i&gt; overblown and misunderstood - people expected their own computers to blow up and even made shelters - and some scammers even took advantage of those fears. It made perfect sense for someone who didn&amp;#x27;t knew what was going on and was fed on doom and destruction to see things continuing without any hitch and wonder what was the fuss all about.</text></comment>