Saw an interview with Dr Drew and I tend to agree with his assessment. The media driven panic over coronavirus is a bigger problem than the virus itself. That by no means mean that there is no concern about the virus.
I don't disagree with this (although I think Dr. Drew is a quack, in general). I also think the "this will blow over like everything else does" *thing* is a really dangerous mindset. Things don't "blow over," they are fought back with science and effort (example, SARS could have been much, much worse; this is a perfect example of science staging).
I understand the general concern. Let's do an experiment, follow along -
I gather 10 people, place them into a room. In this room three people have previously had, or have been exposed to influenza strain A. Three have been exposed to strain B. An additional three, plus the previous six (so, all nine) have been exposed to H1N1 (this is "swine flu"). So, basically a good portion of the control group have been exposed to the general seasonal flu in one form, or another. The 10th person has never been exposed to any form of the virus. Three situations, same closed room:
1: I send an actively sick person into the room with H3N2 (subset of A). There is a very good chance the people who have been exposed to the A virus, as well as H1N1 (which is also a subset of A) will produce an response and may not get the virus at all. The people who have been exposed to the B virus only may have the same result, or may get a blunted result (they may get sick and have a shorter duration disease - the body is basically saying "hey, I've seen something like this, I know how to fight it). The person who has never seen it may get the brunt of it and get very sick.
2: Same situation, B strain Victoria. Most likely everyone in the room who has not experienced a level of sickness from a B strain will encounter a level of sickness, the more severe sickness will be reserved (again) for the folks not exposed to the virus at all. However, in this case, everyone may see equal levels.
3: Expose the group to H5N1. 40-60% of the control group is dead within two weeks (kind estimate); this is avian flu which no one has an immune response to and, unlike other flu, produces more than respiratory symptoms.
Number 3 is why people are in a panic, the introduction of "novel." A virus is alive and, like any living thing, it wants to remain this way. Virus' mutate and change; the current Coronavirus has already evolved into two strains; scientists are debating and have no idea how to understand it yet (it's taken years to understand the flu and, at times, they still don't understand that). Put into lament terms; the thought it there is a reason why some people get violently ill and some do not with covid-19 (more aggressive versus less aggressive strains). Like my analogy above, neither of which any of our bodies have been exposed to.
So - if you're within six feet or so within exposed droplets, you're not in a good position. I mean, it's a virus, and it's the same family as the common cold.
On one hand we see China building hospitals in a period of ten days to handle this, on another we have an administration saying "nothing to see here." The truth is in the middle, right? The way to calm people, at the end of the day, is transparency. Unless, of course, the real truth is that we are all screwed and it's all going to fall apart; very smart virologists have been worried about "virus x" for a long time. Is this virus "x"? Well, I guess we are going to find out, right?
Anyway, holy hell I think this is the longest post I've made in about 12 years. Panic? No. Concern, yes.
Author