The world is not going mad. Large sections appear to be going mad, not least here in the UK where people are stripping the shelves of hand gel, soap, baked beans, spaghetti and toilet rolls. Not everyone is panicking but plenty of people are. And people panic when they are scared. Whether they admit it or not, they are scared, for themselves, of Coronavirus.
All of us should be concerned about Coronavirus because it has the potential to kill people. We should all, as responsible citizens, do our bit to contain the outbreak as best we can. We know that the people most likely to die are older and there are those with underlying health issues. We know that for most people, Coronavirus will be a bad experience or a mild irritation. But the fact that fit and healthy people are likely to be able to resist Coronavirus, is that a good reason to downplay its effects?
Surely the answer to that has to be no. We all know older people and indeed could be related to them. Downplaying the potential of this deadly virus to wreak havoc among a certain demographic does not make sense, unless we take the view that we’re all right, Jack, and vulnerable people can take their chances.
Comparisons with other illnesses and comparisons with fatalities caused by, for example, poverty and hunger, are pointless, too. That’s just like creating a league table of death risks. People are starving to death around the world because, at least in part, through political choices and people electing politicians who do not regard overseas aid as an issue, never mind a priority. That’s what we did last December. And it is not a choice between fighting a deadly virus and feeding the sick. We can do both if we really want.
I read this morning that there has been ‘scaremongering’ about Coronavirus, just like with Brexit, a bizarre comparison if ever there was. The reality is that it is not scaremongering that’s to blame for panic buying in supermarkets, it’s a lack of coherent leadership from the top. Anyway, if the current levels of complacency that exist in Britain today are ever to be addressed, perhaps a bit of unhealthy scaremongering might get a few sceptics to smell the coffee and realise that we could soon be in a situation where hundreds of thousands of people could die. It needn’t happen, it might not happen, but it could, that’s the point.
It is true that the odds of young, fit and healthy people dying of Coronavirus are low, which means that the overall average levels of fatality are far greater among the old and the sick. We really do not need to panic buy, but we will because it’s human nature and no one believes anyone these days, never mind medical professionals and scientists, never mind serial liars like Boris Johnson.
Coronavirus is not the same as season winter flu, not least because there is no vaccine available. And if we are appalled about the number of deaths around the world from poverty and hunger, then get active and do something about it. Until then, do what the doctors and scientists say and don’t panic. No amount of toilet paper will keep the virus away, although it could be handy after consuming all those baked beans.
