I’m sorry Reece, I normally enjoy your articles, but you’re so far wide of the mark on this one it’s scary. This virus is not overhyped at all. You only have to see the effect it’s had on the stock markets, borders etc to understand this.
80% of people may recover from the virus, but that’s not the issue. The risk to the individual is low, but the systemic risk is huge. This is the reason Italy is suffering. They have a large number of people who need treatment, but because so many people are infected, the health service is overwhelmed and cannot cope.
Comparing the virus to heart attacks, cancer and diabetes are irresponsible for a simple reason. None of those diseases is contagious. The rate of infection increases exponentially the more people get infected. The more people that are infected the greater the strain on public health services across the globe. The comparison between a virus and those diseases is laughable because there is no comparison between them.
The infection spread rapidly in South Korea because on person ignored the advice and didn’t isolate when they had the virus. That one person infected so many people because they were selfish and ignored health advice thinking they knew best. In times like this, you have to think of society as a whole. You can have the virus for 14 days and show no symptoms, the whole time you could be spreading a virus which currently has no vaccine. The only reason the situation got better in China was that they locked down the affected areas, otherwise, it would have been way worse.
This is a really irresponsible article to write. This virus is not overhyped in the slightest. It’s a dangerous disease that has a higher mortality rate than seasonal flu when hospitals are stretched to breaking and no more beds are available, what do you think will happen? Doctors will have to decide who dies and who doesn’t which is what is happening in Italy.
It may seem unnecessary to stay home from an individual risk perspective, but from a systemic risk perspective, it’s the right thing to do to stop the spread of the virus and stop people from dying.
