We publish a preview of the interview with Roberto Vacca that will appear in the next issue 286 of L'Orologio, from 28 April on newsstands. Engineer, scholar, writer, author of the book "The Invention of Time" published by L'Orologio Libri, he talks to us about the pandemic and the validity of the decision-making tools of politicians and governments
The Covid-19 pandemic is often compared to World War II. Do you agree?
No: it is a meaningless comparison. In World War II, there were 60 million casualties and about as many (statistics are flawed) were victims of the Spanish flu in 1918-20. Covid-19 - probably less lethal - can be compared to Asiatica, which in 1957 killed 30,000 Italians, 116,000 Americans and over 1.2 million worldwide.
In the book 'The Invention of Time' you strongly criticise the methods employed (or rather not employed) to make political decisions. Instead, you indicate methods for predicting future scenarios that are normally applied in both science and industry. Could the pandemic we are currently experiencing have been predicted? Why are such methods not applied to decisions affecting the public good?
It does not seem possible to predict pandemics. It would, however, be vital to create structures (civil, organisational, health) capable of limiting their effects. The methods defined by decision theory are effective, but most political scientists and politicians tend to ignore them.
In the appendix of the book 'The Invention of Time', you point to the Volterra equations as a tool for predicting the development of many phenomena as a function of known (and certain) data. With the data available today, is it possible to be precise about how long the pandemic will last? Or on how many deaths it will cause worldwide?
The Volterra equations are well suited to provide empirical mathematical formulae that can give an idea of the orders of magnitude involved, if the recorded data are reliable. In the case of Covid-19, the equations I have calculated indicate, based on the data to date (10 April), that there will be around 22,000 to 25,000 deaths in Italy from May onwards. Barring a relapse. For the US, Trump's prediction is 100,000 to 240,000 - probably suggested by his experts, but not fully explained.
On several occasions you have written that the flu is a serious danger. Prophetic words, given that in 2020 we find ourselves battling a flu syndrome of our own?
This is not prophecy, but a rational consideration of past history. In the last century, the deadliest pandemic was the Spanish pandemic of 1918-1920. Meanwhile, vaccines and better hygiene wiped out smallpox and polio and had remarkable successes against plague, cholera and yellow fever. Successes against influenza were also less because of the rapid genetic mutations of influenza viruses.
You are completing with Marco Malvaldi, a book to be published by Mondadori, which takes up 'La pillola del giorno prima', in which you formulate the hypothesis that the bird flu virus mutates and becomes airborne. This is what happened and what scientists and virologists had hypothesised. Why was this hypothesis not considered by the political world?
Politicians do not often consider hypotheses formulated by scientists. There are no governmental measures to avert complex catastrophes. They should increase public investment in research, but above all they should stimulate entrepreneurs and industrialists to greatly increase their investment in research and development.
Now, however, governments are enlisting the crucial help of scientific committees. Do you think they will learn the lesson?
Even scientific committees are often not unanimous - and cannot express firm conclusions. They express conjectures and governments are unable to appreciate them or optimise their eventual decisions.
What should we expect in the near future?
That perhaps we will be successful if we try to study more and think better. If not, things will go haphazardly - often badly.
You have spoken many times about how some computer tools can damage our brain capacities, causing us to lose skills. Could the next pandemic be 'stupidity'?
We find excellent tools on the Net. They enrich us: the Internet in general, Google, which gives us access to all sorts of texts, articles, books, images and innumerable applications and programmes. There are also cretinous games and tools for chatting (generally used for cheap chit-chat), images, videos and porn programmes. Whoever wastes time with the latter - as so many do (epidemic?) - gets hurt. This degradation is not new. Walter Pitkin described it well in a 580-page booklet: 'A brief introduction to the history of human stupidity', in which - in 1933! - he anticipated the description of the functions (not the technology) of the information and communication society.
So the answer is yes?
There will be no new pandemic: stupidity and error have been lurking since ancient times.
