A new disease likely stemming from Chinese people eating undomesticated animals is rapidly spreading and has resulted in some deaths. This is a bad thing. But let’s get a grip.
Here are symptoms of the common norovirus, a brutal stomach virus, as stated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: diarrhea, vomiting, nausea, and stomach pain.
And here are the symptoms of the new coronavirus: fever, cough, and shortness of breath.
If you’re under 65, in decent health, and had to choose which one of those you’d want to be infected with, all signs indicate you should go with the latter.
The treatment for both is the same in the vast majority of cases, which is essentially to avoid contact with others, drink plenty of fluids, and wait it out. Of course, if symptoms intensify, professionals may have to administer care to aid with breathing and hydration. But “most people (about 80%) recover from the disease without needing special treatment,” according to the World Health Organization.
People die from both viruses. The CDC says there are up to 800 deaths per year related to the norovirus, though that’s a tiny number when you consider than there are 21 million cases.
Early data on the fatality rate of the coronavirus, which is more similar to the flu, suggest it may be a more deadly illness. Out of more than 116,000 cases recorded worldwide, there have been over 4,000 deaths. But the record is woefully incomplete, and we don’t know how many people worldwide have actually been infected. Many of those people, perhaps most, won’t ever get tested and will get well on their own.
We know very little about the individual cases in the United States, a country of nearly 330 million people, where there have been 747 diagnosed cases. Of those infected, 26 so far have died, and according to the New York Times, those patients were above 65, other than one man who was in his 40s.
In that case, however, the patient may have had underlying medical problems such as high blood pressure, heart issues, or diabetes, which the World Health Organization says can advance the infection and exacerbate symptoms. If and when the federal government releases more information, we’ll have a better idea of what any of the fatality rates look like.
None of this sounds very alarming, and yet, thanks to hyperventilating news coverage that gives the public the impression that this is in every case a life-threatening illness, the financial markets are quaking, and people are shutting themselves indoors.
In addition to the media’s panicked coverage are journalists’ convulsions over the way people talk about the virus, which did originate in China — specifically a dirty seafood market in the city of Wuhan.
After Republican House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy referred to the virus as “the Chinese coronavirus,” MSNBC anchor Ayman Mohyeldin on Tuesday called it “very derogatory” and “obviously very insensitive terminology.”
So in addition to shaking the country into a fevered nightmare about a fairly unremarkable, flu-like illness, the media are now sprinkling their usual flakes of racism accusations on top.
No wonder the country, along with the rest of the world, is having an anxiety attack about potentially suffering a throat tickle.
We obviously should be doing everything within reason to prevent the spread of the virus. But all evidence suggests that we didn’t have to interrupt our lives, let alone our entire global economy, any more than by washing our hands a few more times and wiping down the things we touch.
