World suffers from Coronavirus hysteria

I know a lot of people are going to call me insensitive for this column, but the irrational over-zealous coverage of the Coronavirus by the media is causing otherwise rational Americans to take ineffective measures to avoid the disease. Worse it is creating an unjustified paranoia about everyday life.

I will admit I am not a doctor or a medical professional, but neither are the national news media who are freely spewing advice about a medical topic they do not understand. They bring in medical professionals who are giving the same advice they gave in 1918. Worse they bring in other journalists who have written books about the 1918 flu pandemic.

History is one thing but sensationalizing the current situation as a coming pandemic is not just fake news its irresponsible. Let’s forget the medicine for a minute and look at the facts. What do we know? The most recent count is that 109,823 people have tested positive with the virus around the world as of Sunday, March 8. Total deaths at this point are 3,804 which is 3.5 percent of the known cases. Sixty thousand nine hundred sixty three (60,963) cases have recovered. Of the 45,056 cases still currently infected 86 percent are considered mild while 6,129 are serious or critical.

The worlds population is 7.8 billion. In other words only .0014 percent of the world’s population has died from this disease. The other 98.86 percent of us have either not been affected or have survived the experience.

Now the best estimate of the death toll from the 1918 H1N1 Flu Pandemic is 50 million people died worldwide with 675,000 of those in the United States. Those statistics are often cited as the reason we need to be concerned about the potentially severe impacts of the Coronavirus.

Here is what is not being reported. In 1918 there were no vaccines to protect against influenza infections and no antibiotics to treat secondary bacterial infections associated with influenza. The worldwide control efforts were limited to non-pharmaceutical interventions. Namely, isolation, quarantine, good personal hygiene (washing hands), use of disinfectants, and limitations on public gatherings.

Apparently those measures were unsuccessful in 1918 and they are likely to be even less effective today.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am not attempting to spread more fear. We have enough of that going around. The good news is that today we have medicines that did not exist in 1918 and a much better understanding of diseases and how best to treat them.

The other issue I have trouble with is this concept of self-quarantine. We live in a global society today. Staying home will not eliminate your exposure. This virus isn’t just spreading because of cruise ships and airlines. The biggest culprit in spreading this virus is probably Amazon and on-line shopping.

I wonder how many people who need medical attention are not getting it because needed medical personnel are self-quarantining themselves and avoiding crowds.

I am also concerned about the recommendation that if you are sick – stay home. If you are sick you need to seek medical attention particularly if you are in a high-risk group. The sooner you seek medical attention the sooner you can be correctly diagnosed and get treatment for your condition.

I do believe that most medical professionals are trying their best to make sure they stay on top of this disease. The problem is there are individuals in high government positions whose jobs are dependent on them convincing all of us how desperately we need them to save us from some catastrophe. They seem to have the ear of the national media who grab onto every “crisis” in order to increase audience share.

The policy of asking us all to put our lives on hold until this “pandemic” runs its course is harmful to our economy and to our quality of life. Its time we got over our collective national paranoia and got back to living boldly and unafraid.