I HOPE it is not too late for my home country as I write this. As of February 19 2020, the Covid-19 novel coronavirus has at least a 2-3% mortality rate, and a much higher basic reproduction number – or the number of other people a patient infects on average – than initially suspected: at least 4.7-6.6 instead of 2.2-2.7. In short, it is at least as virulent as the flu, and much deadlier.

The eminent trader, mathematician, and risk philosopher Nassim Nicholas Taleb has warned, rightly so, that many journalists, especially in the West, naively underestimate the potential impact of a novel disease such as Covid-19.

They say, “But drowning in bathtubs has killed more people than this virus!” Yes, but this completely misses the fact that, unlike bathtubs, a virus can end up killing orders of magnitudes more people in the blink of an eye.

Malaysia did the right thing by denying entry of MS Westerdam after an American passenger tested positive for the virus. Our neighbouring countries Thailand and Singapore are currently suffering from this problem more than we are, but Malaysia is squeezed right in the middle.

If countries as advanced as Singapore and Japan have difficulties in managing the virus, then we must not be complacent. While there will be some economic loss from a temporary travel and trade embargo on a large scale (e.g., as far as to not only China, but also Thailand and Singapore), it will pale in comparison to the unspeakable social and economic damage of an uncontrollable pandemic.

The problem is that you won’t necessarily know whether a security precaution you take ends up preventing a massive disaster. It is a bit like installing locks on cockpit doors before 9/11.

However, this doesn’t mean that you don’t end up looking left and right as you cross the road, even if you don’t think anything is going to happen. There is nothing irrational about being cautious when you have good reason to think that the entire country is at risk. As the CDC says: “we would rather be remembered for overreacting than underreacting.”

In short, Malaysia ought to and must be extremely cautious about Covid-19. Maybe nothing terrible will happen, but nobody can know for sure right now. So, we must hope for the best, but plan for the worst. – February 20, 2020.

* Trishank Karthik Kuppusamy is a Malaysian computer scientist based in New York and reads The Malaysian Insight.