"Historically this would have taken weeks or months but is being done in days or sometimes even hours."
The one thing that's certain about epidemics is that time always counts against you. If the doubling time is 3 to four days and you take a week to decide your problem is already four times as big and it will stay that way until you finally get on top of it - which is, of course, already four times harder to do.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
