Posted on 01/29/2020 3:00:00 PM PST by nickcarraway
It's Catching
The Chinese Coronavirus Is Not the Zombie Apocalypse It’s time to take a deep breath and dial down the hysteria.
I am not downplaying the seriousness of the new Coronavirus that has been spreading around the world. People are dying and every death is a tragedy, but it is not the end of civilization as we know it, contrary to some media outlets which risk causing undue alarm and panic. The headlines are ominous: “Wuhan is Ground Zero for Deadly Coronavirus.” “Situation in China is Grave.” One paper carried an image of a Wuhan medic breaking down in tears. Another showing a pile of corpses was fake. The Daily Mail quoted a researcher as saying, “'This time I am scared,' expert who helped tackle SARS warns.” Another scientist reportedly simulated a similar epidemic that he projected would kill 65 million people. What the headline didn’t say is that it was a worst-case scenario for a virus deadlier than SARS and easier to catch than the flu, an extremely unlikely scenario.
It’s important to put the risk into perspective. The Coronavirus does not appear any worse than the annual flu. The key difference is that there is no vaccine, and one will likely take months to develop. It sounds even more daunting and sinister because it’s new, mysterious, and originates from a foreign country. Adding the mystique is its suspected origin: a snake at an exotic animal market in the city of Wuhan, which sold everything from cow’s heads to camels, foxes, badgers, and an array of rats and reptiles.
It’s frightening to watch the news reports of health officials in China wearing rubber gloves, surgical masks, goggles, and hazmat suits as they treat patients. But these images need to be tempered with reality. Each year tens of thousands of Americans die from the influenza virus. The Centers for Disease Control estimate that last year alone about 40,000 citizens died from the flu. Two years ago, the death rate was the worst in a decade at 61,000. Most online sources will tell you that this figure was closer to 80,000, but the CDC later revised the number downward. Despite this, many of the original stories have never been updated.
During the 2018-2019 flu season in the United States, about 75% of all deaths were age 65+. Roughly 17% were between 50-64. These two categories comprise 91% of all deaths. But look closer and you will see that many of them had an array of pre-existing conditions that left them with weakened immune systems. Early reports from China back this up, most of those who have died were already in poor health. One preliminary report placed the median age of death as 75. As Michael Fumento observes, the virus will almost certainly hit China harder than developed Western countries; not because we have better medicines but because the flu victims in these countries often die from secondary infections due to inferior medical care, whereas in places like the U.S. people rarely die from such infections. Catching Coronavirus is not a death sentence, but if you are elderly or have an underlying medical, you should take precautions. But that’s the same advice doctors give every year for the flu.
All indications are that this Coronavirus is much milder than its two cousins, SARS and MERS. When SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) broke out in China in 2002, it was traced to civet cats and had a death rate of about 10%. There were just over 8,000 cases in 17 countries. SARS is a variant of the new Coronavirus. In 2012, another variation of the virus broke out in the Middle East and was dubbed Middle East Respiratory Syndrome or MERS. The virus had a much higher death rate – about 35%, but only affected 2,500 people and was much harder to catch than SARS; transmission was linked to camel meat. The good news about the new virus is that while it appears to spread more easily than its two predecessors, it is far less severe. That fits with a general rule that the more deadly the virus, the harder it is to catch.
Perhaps the biggest problem facing authorities is that the new Coronavirus is relatively mild. With SARS and MERS, people got very sick and were easy to identify. With the new virus, you may have it and not even know. Based on the early statistics, the mortality rate for Coronavirus is roughly 3%, but the true number is probably much, much lower given the likelihood that many people have already been infected but haven’t been sick enough to even seek treatment. Will the virus spread around the world? Yes, because it already has. But will it spread en masse? That remains to be seen. But if it does, expect it to be no worse than the flu.
Beware of Social Media
In 1597, Francis Bacon wrote that ‘knowledge itself is power.’ The more we know about the Coronavirus, the better. In 2020, we have more information at our fingertips than Bacon could have ever imagined. The problem: Much of that information is unvetted on the worldwide web. While Bacon was not far removed from the Dark Ages and he lived at a time when medicine was in its infancy, he had some advantages that we don’t, he didn’t have a mobile phone and there was no Facebook, YouTube or Twitter. He also didn’t have the modern media feeding frenzy to deal with. Like sex, epidemics sell. While some news outlets have been very responsible in their reporting, others have been downright apocalyptic. Headlines routinely refer to the ‘deadly’ Coronavirus. News flash: Viruses kill people. The key question: ‘How is this different from past outbreaks?’
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There is a real danger that social media will spread fear and confusion. Its tentacles can reach every corner of the globe in the blink of an eye. We live in what Marshall McLuhan described as a ‘global village.’ Unfortunately, the new Information Age is rife with misinformation, disinformation, rumors, fake news, political agendas, conspiracy theories, deep fakes, and photoshopped images that can spread panic faster than any virus. Viral media can undermine the credibility of health authorities and lead to everything from mass to quarantine areas to panic hoarding and shopping, bank runs, and share market sells-offs. During the 2014 measles epidemic in Vietnam, online rumors and claims that the government was lying to the people about the severity of the outbreak, fostered panic and made the epidemic that much harder to control.
How do we quell panic? The antidote to fear and uncertainty is transparency and timely, accurate information from reliable sources. The problem with this strategy is that we are living in an age of government and media distrust. In America, trust in our elected officials is at an all-time low. Mistrust abounds in many parts of the world as evidenced by the recent wave of anti-government protests and riots that swept around the globe in 2019 – from South America to Asia, and Europe to Africa. Many experts attribute this surge to social media and its ability to disseminate information. But social media is a double-edged sword. The internet is rife with misinformation and falsehoods, especially about health. Some of these claims, like ‘Vaccines are bad for you,’ have led to the re-emergence of preventable diseases like measles and polio. Then there’s confirmation bias. People tend to gravitate towards and accept claims that support their pre-existing beliefs.
If Francis Bacon were alive today, he would almost certainly be in awe of our scientific progress and the amount of information that has been amassed by humanity. He would be equally perplexed by the number of people who fail to utilize it and seem more aligned with the beliefs of his century, than embracing the science of the 21st. In the words of Carl Sagan: ‘Wherever we have strong emotions, we are liable to fool ourselves.” The human propensity to spread fear and misinformation through viral media may cause more harm than the Coronavirus itself.
References
Bartholomew, Robert E. and Evans, Hilary (2004). Panic Attacks: Media Manipulation & Mass Delusion. Sutton Publishing, United Kingdom.
Bartholomew, Robert E. (2001). Little Green Men, Meowing Nuns and Headhunting Panics: A Study of Mass Psychogenic Illness and Social Delusions. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company.
Collier, Roger (2018). Containing Health Myths in the Age of Viral Misinformation. Canadian Medical Association Journal 190(19):E578 (May 14).
Larsen, Heidi (2018). The Biggest Pandemic Risk? Viral Misinformation. Nature 562 (7726) October 1.
2017-2018 Estimated Influenza Illnesses, Medical Visits, Hospitalizations, and Deaths and Estimated Influenza Illnesses, Medical Visits, Hospitalizations, and Deaths Averted by Vaccination in the United States. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (NCIRD). Accessed at: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden-averted/2017-2018.htm#anchor_1574361280230 (Updated November 22, 2019).
Damn...
You mean to tell me I spent ALL WEEKEND loading mags for nothing????
Psychology today had their brains eaten a long time ago.
When was the last time these things happened?
ALL. AT. THE. SAME. TIME.
1) China has restricted the movements of over 50 million people during Chinese New Year
2) China has instituted temperature screenings at 237 train stations (maybe 287, I lost the link). (South China Morning Post)
3) The President / Communist Party General Secretary of China openly called this a (his words) grave situation (over the weekend) and says that the spread is accelerating
4) The Director of the School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins openly says we should be making national and international plans for the event that this cannot be contained; and talks about multiple crash research programs into vaccines where “money is no object”
5) The Lancet publishes an article saying that R0 (# of people infected by each carrier) is 2.8 (the Spanish Flu of 1918 was only 1.8)
6) A PhD who taught at Harvard School of Public Health for 15 years says that R0 is 3.5
7) The Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services holds a joint press conference in DC, along with the Director of the Institute for Allergies and Infections Diseases, the Director of the Centers for Disease Control, and the Director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Disease ....for something that only has had 5 cases without symptoms in the US?
8) Local authorities all over the US start pulling people suspected of infection off of planes and putting them in isolated hospital rooms, and institute contact tracing?
9) British Airways shuts down ALL flights into and out of China
10) Taiwan announced mandatory ankle location bracelets for people coming out the affected area, and say if anyone leaves home they will be subject to MANDATORY involuntary quarantine, and fine one traveler $10,000 for lying about his condition?
I’m still planning on head shots.
Ok, I laughed.
Yes, that certainly explains the Chinese government’s reaction.
South Korea police authorized to arrest coronavirus patients
Gotta admit... I got excited for a little while...
If you trust the Chinese government. (Which I don’t)
You left off: Disney China closed.
Disney was reopened about two days after 9/11 to put that in perspective. Doesn’t close for hurricanes.
The article also missed the major point: of those infected, 25% are in critical condition and hospitalized. Yeah, they may not die, but the early infected are the lucky ones. Later infected will have not hospital beds.
Many of the things you write, we only have the Chinese government’s word is happening.
Nor the Director of the Johns Hopkins school of public health. Nor the CDC news conference yesterday. Nor the pulling people off planes and contact tracing.
Top Kek.
Add to your list the closing of China’s stock market.
I swear I read this morning a list of deaths that showed the ages and most were in their 30s to 50s. Did I imagine that?
The number of confirmed #coronavirus cases in mainland China has risen to 7,158. The number of people it killed now stands at 170 as of Wednesday night - South China Morning Post
Keep loading mags if it makes you feel better I guess.
Nope.
But if you have any that you don't have room for you can send them to me. I will give them a nice home (for a bit) and then give them a rousing send off.
The article writer is obviously an expert in infectious diseases.
In Print: American Intolerance: Our Dark History of Demonizing Immigrants
Online: Robert Bartholomew The Sociologist
Haha!!! They’re all accounted for.
I had a neighbor once, several years ago - not a gun person. Saw me loading up my vehicle for a weekend Range Call. Made a joking comment to the effect of “Boy, if things ever go really bad, I’m coming over your house...”
I just chuckled, then said “Not unless you’re bringing ammo, food, water, and other supplies you’re not.”
No more joking after that. :^) He got the message.
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