Posted on 03/03/2020 2:28:39 AM PST by Kaslin
We go from hysteria to hysteria.
And even that's not quite accurate. We now endure multiple hysterias at once.
The latest, of course, is COVID-19, better known as the coronavirus. In addition to China, where the virus originated, major cities in Italy and Japan are in lockdown mode, and Japan has closed all its schools. In the United States, where, as of this writing, six people -- most, if not all, of whom were already ill -- have died, the states of Washington (where all six deaths occurred) and Florida and the city of San Francisco have declared states of emergency.
Many international and domestic business conferences have been canceled, including:
--The Google News Initiative Summit in late April in Sunnyvale, California.
--The Microsoft MVP Global Summit March 15-20 in Bellevue and Redmond, Washington (now to be an online-only event).
--The Facebook Global Marketing Summit, March 9-12 in San Francisco.
--The MWC (Mobile World Congress) Barcelona, billed as "the largest mobile event in the world."
Amazon has asked its 798,000 employees to stop all nonessential travel, both domestic and international, immediately.
Meanwhile, according to Time, "U.S. stocks lost nearly 12% and $3.5 trillion was erased for U.S.-listed stocks. It was the worst week for stocks since the financial crisis in October of 2008."
And the "yield on the 10-year Treasury note hit a record intraday low [last] Tuesday as coronavirus rocked risk markets and investors flooded into safe-havens," according to Markets Insider.
If these trends continue, the world economy is likely to enter a recession, if not a depression.
Unless the coronavirus becomes a worldwide mass killer, it will be fair to say that the hysteria over coronavirus will cause much more suffering than the virus.
All this leads to three questions:
1. Why aren't we seeing a sober, measured reaction to the virus?
2. What has caused this hysteria?
3. Why are so many people in panic mode?
Answer to question 1: Because people have lost all perspective.
This flu, like SARS and swine flu before it, has been given a name. Every year tens of thousands of people die of that season's generic flu. In the 2017-2018 flu season, in America alone, according to the CDC, about 61,000 people died of the flu. But because that flu didn't have a special name, no one other than individuals close to those who died from the flu knows or cares about any no-name flu.
In 2003, there was hysteria over SARS, which also originated in China, and which killed a total of 774 people in 29 countries.
In 2009, the World Health Organization, which should be renamed the World Hysteria Organization, raised the worldwide pandemic alert level of the swine flu (a variant of the H1N1 virus) to Phase 6, the highest alert level.
According to the CDC, the swine flu infected approximately 61 million Americans, of whom 12,269 died. To put that into perspective, also according to the CDC, the next season's flu, that of 2010-2011, killed about 37,000 Americans; in 2012-2013, 43,000 died of the flu; and as noted, in 2017-2018, 61,000 died (the CDC's upper figure was 95,000).
Answer to question 2: Overwhelmingly because of the news media. The news media have been breathlessly reporting virtually every new diagnosis of the coronavirus 24/7. Typical of media reporting is this from Canada's most widely read newspaper, The Globe and Mail: "COVID-19 spreads so rapidly that one Harvard researcher has warned that 40 to 70 per cent of the world's adults will be infected." But they never bother to tell you that being "infected" is, for almost everyone, not remotely life-threatening.
Answer to question 3: This one is perplexing.
I am not certain why people panic so easily. Perhaps it is built into human nature. Perhaps it is the power of the media to influence people. Perhaps it is because life is so easy in the modern world that people have come to expect a life without deadly illness or premature death from any cause. Perhaps it is because of the lack of perspective noted above.
There are things about which people should be panicked. For example, the contempt for America and capitalism taught to a generation of young Americans from elementary school through college is worthy of panic. The extreme levels of economy-collapsing debt we are irresponsibly piling onto the backs of future generations to maintain "entitlements" is worthy of panic. So is the premature sexualization of children -- encouraging them to choose their own gender and taking 5-year-olds to public libraries for "drag queen story hour." But such things hardly register with most Americans.
I feel awful for kids today. They are relentlessly told that global warming poses an "existential threat" to life on earth. They are relentlessly told that President Donald Trump poses an "existential threat to America" -- the words used, for example, a few weeks ago by Frank Rich in New York Magazine, and used by the "moderate" Michael Bloomberg repeatedly in his speeches. And now they are told their families had better stock up on toilet paper because only God knows when they will be unable to leave their homes.
It was a Democratic president who told Americans, during World War II no less, that "we have nothing to fear but fear itself." He is a liberal idol, in part for saying that.
That is more or less exactly what Trump has been saying. Yet he's an "existential threat" to our country.
In the 4th paragraph from the bottom, he lists the things we SHOULD be panicking about.
They make this virus look like a walk in the park.
People are easier to control if they are afraid. In the case of disease, the message is pretty explicit: “You should panic”. But in everyday life most people are living lives of quiet desperation. People are always afraid because the idiot box in their living room tells them that the world is a scary place. But don’t worry: the government will save you.
Precisely
Because nearly every level of government, local & federal, is comprised of human failures who would be left unemployed if not for politics?
These are excellent points he makes.
Fear can be used very effectively, to control.
Dear Lord, please guide and strengthen us.
I think you’re correct. Sadly, this hysteria has been the most intense case of collective stupidity on FRee Republic I’ve seen in twenty years. Supposedly, this discussion group is home to the most independent minds on planet earth. It’s distressing to see how easily some were misled.
This is the most important thread posted in easily a week.
You should have posted it at FR rush hour, not now! :)
I am quite shocked at the hysteria setting in here.
YES, it needs to be addressed and precautions taken.
But it’s not the plague for goodness’ sake.
And like I said, that paragraph about what we SHOULD be panicking about...it’s gold. It’s Heartbreaking and heart wrenching...but it’s gold.
And Everyone needs to read it.
We have a REAL PANDEMIC here in the US.
I’m not Bible thumper and Lord knows I sin, but EVIL is our pandemic.
And it’s spreading like wildfire.
What is the current (Dead / (Dead + Recovered)) rate for the flu versus Coronavirus?
You pick the sources you like best.
Get back to me when you have a comparison and citations.
Sorry about that, but I couldn’t sleep anymore and there was nothing on TV I wanted to watch.
That's kinda true, and kinda not.
My work is tangent to Public Health. I work closely with the people who have made that their careers, every day.
There are many outstanding individuals who work in this field. In the health economics that have developed after 1965, and especially after 1986, they are "cost centers", not "profit centers". Every single health care MBA minted in the last 40 years knows that you need to minimize cost centers and maximize profit centers. This is why we can't train people to do boob jobs fast enough while we have a shortage of epidemiologists. But I digress.
Public Health is, well, public.
This means working for politicians. Working for politicians requires, at its core, not making anyone mad or sad, much more so making anyone mad AND sad (scared). If you do that, normally, you get fired.
Therefore, 99% of the time, a stable public health career requires Mr. Rogers. 1% of the time, however, you need George S. Patton. Unfortunately, March 2020 happens to be one of those times.
It is fortunate that, among your "human failures" in Public Health there are a few Pattons in waiting. They are beginning to emerge as the risk of getting fired for making people mad and sad declines and as the need for their services grows.
Keep your eye on the politicians they work for, though. They aren't quite sitting down and shutting up - yet.
“Sadly, this hysteria has been the most intense case of collective stupidity on FRee Republic I’ve seen in twenty years. Supposedly, this discussion group is home to the most independent minds on planet earth. It’s distressing to see how easily some were misled.”
_______
It’s been something to see, hasn’t it. I suppose it will burn itself out.
most people are living lives of quiet desperation...
Not me.
I live a life of Screaming Out Loud Desperation!! :)
It makes me laugh at the desperation and take it less seriously :)
I’ve got things I could fear and worry about, plenty...like most others I assume.
But something my mom says oddly always makes me feel better...
She says..”Ah, in 50 years nobody will care about what we were so worried about”
:)
Fair enough :)
lol
Yeah I’m pretty shocked too.
It’s something to be taken seriously but it’s not something to be obsessed with.
First, you have to get the illness.
Then you have to get it worst symptoms. Many people have had mild or moderate symptoms and gotten better.
Then you likely need some other illness that has broken your body down so much that it can’t fight a brutal respiratory illness. I’ve fought pneumonia twice and I’m still here.
There’s 350 million people in the country. I think less than 50 have died.
Let’s just take it day by day.
I agree those other things are alarming and should be dealt with. However, it's simple math. If this virus gets loose in the general public like the annual flu, it could easily kill 30 times the people that influenza does. Remember, we're relying on the government to keep us safe here. So, yes, I think people should be more concerned than what the "oh, don't worry" crowd is showing.
Definitely needs to be taken seriously.
I’ve just panicked about SO MANY things in my 51 years and nothing ever ended up being nearly as bad as what I built up in my head.
So I just take each day with this thing and take precautions where needed.
But i’m ONE HUNDRED percent sure that this ain’t gonna be the thing that kills me.
I have too many vices waiting in line :)
Paid trolls, out to cause as much panic and hysteria a they can to tank the economy and the markets in the lead up to the 2020 elections and make Trump lose. You may have noticed that its the same determined small group of people who keep starting these Coronavirus threads with the most alarmist headlines from CNN etc as they can get.
Ignore them.
Supposedly, this discussion group is home to the most independent minds on planet earth.
They are..for the most part
It’s distressing to see how easily some were misled.
A few have been misled. Most are not.
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