Speaking
from within her apartment in Wuhan, a woman said she feels like it is the end
of the world. She is in quarantine in a city which is the epicentre of the
COVID-19 (corona virus). A city where the infection is spreading rapidly, where
hospitals are full, where people are dying, where government officials are
welding people's doors shut so they can't leave their apartments. This is Wuhan
in Hubei Province, China where the doctor who first raised the alarm about this
dangerous new virus was silenced, punished and died five weeks later. The truth
about this province and the origin of the virus is as yet unknown.
Here are the
latest COVID-19 Coronavirus headlines from Reuters;
- Cases
exceed 3,000 in South Korea in largest outbreak outside China
- At least
85,000 global cases are confirmed
- The death
toll stands at over 2,900
- WHO warns risk of global spread ‘very high’
- Qatar, the
Netherlands, Monaco, Iceland and Mexico record their first cases
-US citizens
urged to avoid non-essential travel to Italy
- Italy
places around 50,000 people in quarantine
-Schools in
Japan to close amid the outbreak
According to
the World Health Organisation, 95% of COVID-19 cases are in China and the
majority of these are in Hubei province. That 2900 people have died is a
tragedy, but did you know that around 56,000 people die from influenza or flu
like illnesses each year? This isn't newsworthy because it happens every year.
The 1918
Spanish flu affected a quarter of the population of the world and killed an
estimated 40 to 50 million people. It was the first occurrence of H1N1. The
second was the swine flu outbreak in 2009 which the CDC estimates killed
between 150,000 and 575,000 people.
Stories
about COVID-19 dominate global news services now. Clearly it's a serious health
issue and governments, or should I say most governments, are keeping their
citizens as informed and as safe as possible. For most people, in most parts of
the world there is really no cause for alarm. The virus will be contained. New
infections will stop occurring. The death rate will slow to zero. The majority
of ill will recover. Travel restrictions will be lifted. Face masks will be
easy to purchase. Life will go on. This is not the apocalypse. It's not the end
of the world. Even the actual end of the world is not really the end of the
world.
Sometimes
information makes us feel safe, sometimes it has the opposite effect. Truth is
a casualty in times like this. With so much misinformation around. Eventually
the truth about COVID-19 will be discovered, but by then the world will have
moved on to its next hysteria inducing disaster story.
