Coronavirus/Covid19: Don’t Panic, It’s Just Flu

It may or may not be a pandemic, but it is certainly a panic. A huge chunk of Italy, including Milan and Venice, is locked down, as is much of Washington State. Financial markets have freaked out, anticipating economic damage (mostly not from disease but from measures combating it).

Our federal government’s response so far is shambolic. Test kits: too little too late. Moronic Trump spews misinformation and utilizes the occasion to bash enemies.

China’s draconian restrictions on freedom seem to have gotten the spread under control. One worries about countries with governments even less competent than Trump’s. (Yes, there are many.)

A problem is that an infected person is symptomless for a while, so can infect many others before detection.

Okay. Now let’s please get a grip.

So far, coronavirus has caused something over 100,000 illnesses and 3000 deaths worldwide. It’s an ailment much like ordinary flu, so most cases are relatively mild and clear up by themselves. Both illnesses kill mostly people already in frail health.

In the U.S. alone, ordinary common flu this season has thus far caused at least 32 million illnesses, 310,000 hospitalizations, and 20,000 deaths.

Coronavirus does seem to have a somewhat higher death rate, but it’s still a very small percentage and the vast majority of victims recover. Coronavirus also does seem somewhat more infectious. On both measures, researchers are still trying to get an accurate fix. But it’s clear that though, on a case-by-case basis, coronavirus is more dangerous, it is not dramatically more dangerous.

And even if coronavirus is more contagious than ordinary flu, your chances of catching the latter, in the U.S., are hundreds of times greater simply because there are vastly more carriers. That could conceivably change, but coronavirus would have to metastasize humongously before it would actually be a U.S. health threat rivaling ordinary flu.

So why the panic over coronavirus, but not ordinary flu?*

As ever, human psychology is very bad at rationally gauging threats. After 9/11, millions felt safer driving than flying, though the risk on the roads was hugely greater (even counting the terrorism factor). People feel safer driving because they imagine they have control, unlike on an airplane. In the case of flu, the control factor is represented by vaccines, though in reality their effectiveness is limited. Another factor is familiarity. Driving, and seasonal flu, are thoroughly familiar. Unfamiliarity makes airplane terrorism, and coronavirus, seem more scary.

So we have TSA, and drastic efforts to contain coronavirus. Similarly strong measures could prevent tens of thousands of deaths annually from car crashes and ordinary flu, not to mention guns, but most Americans just yawn.

Government might do better at calming the coronavirus panic by calling it just “flu.”

* Actually, measures combating coronvirus will probably prevent larger numbers of flu deaths as a side effect.