Renowned Hungarian network scientist on why worldwide measures are necessary

Albert-László Barabási’s Facebook post spread like wildfire in the past day or two. Albert-László is a famous network scientist, who works at the Network Science Institute in Boston, where they observe and predict the pattern in which pandemics spread. His colleagues studied Zika and Ebola viruses before, and now coronavirus (COVID-19) is under the microscope. He decided that he is going to write a post to Facebook, reacting to the measures of several governments. The original Hungarian post can be found in the article.

“In the coming months, I will most likely become infected. Billions of coronaviruses will multiply in my body, triggering a desperate fight with my immune cells. Absent of a chronic illness, in the vicinity of Harvard hospitals, I trust that my immune system will prevail. Still, I am worried. So much so that I find it inevitable to shut the world down for two months. Not for myself, but for my mother.”

He said that in the labs of Network Science Institute in Boston, they had already known in February, that the world was going to be shut down in mid-March. Although they did not know then, what this meant exactly, now the whole world is starting to realise that.

According to him, it is going to be a hard two months and the most challenging time has yet to come.

“We also know that the virus cannot be stopped; it will spread regardless of how many countries close their borders, how many flights are cancelled, or how many schools are closed. We are already past the point where quarantine could stop COVID-19 from spreading. […] Many never find out whether they were infected or not because they had no symptoms. But they can also spread the virus.”

According to Albert-László, many people wonder why governments take such measures if the virus is unstoppable anyway? His answer is simply that it slows the spreading of the virus:

“This way we can save our parents, our grandparents and in some cases, even ourselves.”

“Every model – he says – predicts, that half of the world population will become infected within a year.” He says that if we do nothing to try and stop the spreading of the virus, then at some point, there will be not enough capacity to provide medical care for all of those who are infected. According to his predictions, this point can happen soon, and tens of thousands of people could become infected within weeks if people will continue to do nothing. “We could see from the case of Italy, that if the virus escapes our control, then doctors must decide over life and death.”