Re: COVID, the correct course of action (unless one was psychic) was to be extremely paranoid at the start (trying for total bubbling, sterilizing outside objects, etc) because the EV was very downside-skewed—but as more information came in, to stop worrying about surfaces, start being fine with spacious outdoor gatherings, get a good mask and be comfortable doing some things inside, etc.
That is, a good EA would have been faster than the experts on taking costly preventative acts and faster than the experts on relaxing those where warranted.
Some actual EAs seemed to do this well, and others missed in one direction or the other (there was a lot of rapid group house self-sorting in March/April 2020 over this, and then a slower process afterward).
These are cached arguments that are irrelevant to this particular post and/or properly disclaimed within the post.
The asks from this post aren’t already in the water supply of this community; everyone reading EA Forum has, by contrast, already encountered the recommendation to take animal welfare more seriously.