Here are my reactions to common reactions to COVID-19.
1. "It only kills the sick and elderly." - This argument makes it sound like you are fine with those two categories of people dying. Just because YOU won't die of it, doesn't mean we shouldn't make sure it stops long before it gets to those who can.
And in case you think "sick" means "already on their death bed anyway," be clear that the CDC page on who is considered "high risk" includes such illnesses as heart disease and diabetes. Stop and think about everyone you know who has one of these two diseases.
2. "This statistic I found makes it seem like COVID-19 isn't a big deal compared with something we deal with all the time." - The statistic you are looking at is probably a bad statistic. For example, a common statistic I see compares the number of deaths worldwide of different things to the number of deaths from COVID-19. This statistic is just silly. Comparing a statistic from worldwide issues to something that, so far, is happening in specific regions, is not a great comparison.
There is only one set of statistics that would be meaningful--a statistic that compared the number of deaths in a region fully infected by COVID-19 during a set period of time to deaths by other causes in that exact same region during that same period of time.
Also, remember how the flu works. Practically nobody dies of the flu. Even the large number that is being tossed around is not a number of deaths due to the regular flu--it's the number of people who died because the flu caused some other complication. For example, it weakened their immune system, they caught something like pneumonia, and then they died of THAT. The number of people who die from the actual flu itself and not something else is super tiny.
The same goes with this, PLUS people can actually die FROM THIS.
3. "This is just a cold." No, it's not.
This page shows the difference between what a cold virus looks like and a flu virus looks like:
You've probably seen a ton of pictures online of what COVID-19 looks like. Note the super pronounced neuraminidase.
Don't know what a neuraminidase is? Then maybe you're not an expert on the difference between a cold and a flu.
4. "I don't think we need to go into a full blown panic over this." - Of course we don't. There is a huge spectrum between "do nothing" and "full-blown panic." And the thing we need to do lies somewhere in the middle.
The problem is that some people are calling doing ANYTHING a panic, when it's not.
What we should be talking about is the difference between reasonable precautions and unreasonable precautions, not labeling anything anyone does as hysteria.
5. "Not a lot of people are going to die from this." - The real question is, even if it didn't kill a single person, what happens when a huge percentage of our population is sick at the same time?
Imagine this was just the normal flu, but the only change was you could go a week being contagious without knowing it?
Couldn't you see how that would still be a massive problem?
If I'm a small business and my only two employees both are out with the virus?
Or if the CVS warehouse that ships my prescriptions is suddenly operating at 50% capacity because half its workers are out with the virus, couldn't that affect me in ways that aren't related to the virus?
Or half the gas stations in town have the majority of their employees all out sick with the flu?
Or if every policeman in your town eats donuts out of the same tray and suddenly all get sick at the same time?
I think there's more to this than a scoreboard that's measured with a number that is solely "How many people died directly from coronavirus."
This isn't about ONLY trying to prevent deaths from COVID-19. It's about trying to prevent all the problems that would come from a huge chunk of our nation suddenly all becoming sick with the flu at the same time. The burden that would put on hospitals should be obvious--even if they manage to save everybody--but the burden that would put all over our economy is just as big a problem.
And the burden it puts on hospitals suddenly becomes a big deal when you show up with some other, unrelated medical issue, but they can't help you because they're so overwhelmed by patients dealing with this thing.
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Just please, consider that a lot of really smart people are trying their best to help everyone they can, and don't be too quick to assume there is some sinister or political or conspiratorial motivation behind all of this.
The faster we help this blow over, the faster we can get on with our happy, healthy lives.
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