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Sunday, January 26, 2020

Should We Be Worried About The Coronavirus?

Long time readers may have noted that I've often downplayed past outbreaks of Ebola, MERS and SARS. Although I've reported on these past outbreaks, they never seemed to reach a critical mass sufficient to be concerned that they would develop into a pandemic. Some have raised the same point in regard to the current coronavirus outbreak in China. For instance, Michael Fumento of the New York Post warns readers, "Don’t buy the media hype over the new China virus." He notes, for instance, that:
... there appears to be nothing very special about this outbreak of the 2019-nCoV or Wuhan ­virus. It should actually be called the DvV, or Déjà vu Virus, because we have been through these hysterias before. Over and over. Heterosexual AIDS, Ebola repeatedly, the H1N1 swine flu that was actually vastly milder than the regular flu and, especially, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2003.
And comparing this to the regular flu outbreaks we experience, the current virus seems small time. Fumento points out, for instance, that a couple flu seasons ago, about 80,000 Americans died of the flu. And although the vast number of people never seek hospital attention for influenza, of those that do, "the regular flu death rate is 8.5 percent to 17 percent, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — considerably higher than for Wuhan." Conversely, the latest numbers I've seen indicates that the Wuhan virus has killed 56 and infected 2,000 worldwide

     So if the Wuhan virus appears to be no more dangerous than the flu, why be worried? Perhaps there is nothing to be worried about. But what caught my attention about this outbreak was how rapidly it spread from China to other countries, the Chinese government's reaction to the outbreak, and the rapid changes in what information was released about the virus. For instance, within days of hearing about the outbreak, we were already hearing reports of it showing up in foreign countries; the Chinese government quickly moved to quarantine a city of 11 million people and has since widened the quarantine to tens of millions more; the virus was originally spread through coughing and mucus like most respiratory diseases, but we've since learned that it can be caught through the eyes, that it can be transmitted by carriers before symptoms arise. Thus, we have no idea how rapidly it is spreading or how many people have been infected.

    Anyway, the latest news:

2 comments:

  1. I wasn't worried about coronavirus until I saw a report stating that Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said "It isn't something the American public needs to worry about or be frightened about." (https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/479939-government-health-agency-official-corona-virus-isnt-something-the) Now, I'm worried.

    BTW, China is only 14 hours and $700 away.

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    1. Good point. Sometimes there is something to be learned from how hard and how persistently they try to reassure you that there is no danger.

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